I will pay myself with her chickens." "Very good," said I, well pleased at having got so cheap a lodging.
"But I am a just man, and I will pay for what I have eaten and drunk, and you can take the night's lodging out of your wife's chickens, as you say." So we were both satisfied.[Footnote: This incident actually occurred, precisely as related.] The storm of the night had passed away, leaving everything wet and the air cool and fresh.

I wrapped my cloak about me and went into the market-place to see if I could pick up any news.

It was already late for the country, and there were few people about.

Here and there, in the streets, a wine-cart was halting on its way to Rome, while the rough carter went through the usual arrangement of exchanging some of his employer's wine for food for himself, filling up the barrel with good pure water that never hurt anyone.

I wandered about, though I could not expect to see any face that I knew; it is so many years since I lived at Serveti that even were the carters from my old place I should have forgotten how they looked.