Heart/The Trader
when he has got it quite full. Meanwhile, the bookseller gives him his copy-books, because he takes a great many boys to the shop.
In school, he is always bartering; he effects sales of little articles every day, and gets up lotteries and exchanges; then he regrets the trade, and wants his stuff back again. He buys for two and sells for four; he plays at pitch-penny, and never loses; he sells old newspapers over again to the tobacconist; and he keeps a little blank-book, full of figures, in which he sets down his transactions. At school he studies nothing but arithmetic; and if he desires the medal, it is only that he may have a free entrance into the puppet-show.
But he pleases me; he amuses me. We played at keeping a market, with weights and scales. He knows the exact price of everything; he understands weighing, and quickly makes handsome paper horns, like shopkeepers. He declares that as soon as he has finished school he shall set up in business—in a new business which he has invented himself. He was very much pleased when I gave him some foreign postage-stamps; and he informed me exactly how each one sold for collections. My father pretended to be reading the newspaper; but he listened to him, and was greatly diverted. His pockets are bulging, full of his little wares; and he covers them up with a long, black cloak, and always appears thoughtful and preoccupied with business, like a merchant.
But the thing that he has nearest his heart is his collection of postage-stamps. This is his treasure; and he always speaks of it as though he were going to get a fortune out of it. The boys accuse him of miserliness and usury. I do not know: I like him; he teaches me a great many things; he seems a man to me. Coretti, the son of the wood-merchant, says that Garoffi would not give him his postage-stamps to save his mother's life. My father does not believe it.
“Wait a little before you condemn him, he said to me; he has this passion, but he has heart as well.”
VANITY
Yesterday I went for a walk along the Rivoli road with Votini and his father. As we were passing through the Dora Grossa Street we saw Stardi, the boy who kicks at those who bother him, standing stiffly in front of the window of a book-shop, with his eyes fixed on a map; and no one knows how long he had been there, because he studies even in the street. He barely returned our salute, the rude fellow!
Votini was well dressed—even too much so. He had on morocco boots embroidered in red, an embroidered coat, small silken tassels, a white beaver hat, and a watch; and he strutted. But his vanity was to come to a bad end this time. After having gone a tolerably long distance up the Rivoli road, leaving his father, who was walking slowly, a long way in the rear, we halted at a stone seat, beside a modestly clad boy, who appeared to be weary and moody, and who sat with drooping head. A man, who must have been his father, was walking to and fro under the trees,