It seemed to me that he was becoming a great dandy, but as he never asked me for any money from the day he learnt to copy music I never put any questions.

He certainly had a new coat before Christmas, and gloves, and very nice boots, that made me smile when I thought of the day when he arrived, with only one shoe--and it had a hole in it as big as half his foot.

But now he grew to be so careful of his appearance that Mariuccia began to call him the "signorino." De Pretis said he was making great progress, and so I was contented, though I always thought it was a sacrifice for him to be a singer.
Of course, as he went three times a week to the Palazzo Carmandola, he began to be used to the society of the contessina.

I never understood how he succeeded in keeping up the comedy of being a professor.

A real Roman would have discovered him in a week.