It is a business better not spoken of.

But what one thinks, one thinks.

And that is enough." A crowd of brown-skinned boys were in the water swimming and playing, as they do all day long in summer, and dashing spray at each other.

They had a shabby-looking old skiff with which they amused themselves, upsetting and righting it again in the shallow water by the beach beyond the bathing houses.
"What a boat!" laughed Bastianello.

"A baby can upset her and it takes a dozen boys to right her again!" "Whose is she ?" enquired Ruggiero idly, as he filled his pipe.
"She?
She belonged to Black Rag's brother, the one who was drowned last Christmas Eve, when the Leone was cut in two by the steamer in the Mouth of Procida.