Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/93

 hundred and sixty—one lira! Then he stopped, placed the pen where he had found it, put out the light, and went back to bed on tiptoe.

At noon the next day his father sat down to the table in a good humor. He had noticed nothing. He did the work mechanically, measuring it by the hour, and thinking of something else, and only counted the wrappers he had written on the following day. Slapping his son on one shoulder, he said to him:—

“Eh, Giulio! Your father is even a better workman than you thought. In two hours I did a good third more work than usual last night. My hand is still nimble, and my eyes still do their duty.” And Giulio, silent but content, said to himself, “Poor daddy, besides the money, I am giving him such satisfaction in the thought that he has grown young again. Well, courage!”

Encouraged by these good results, when night came and twelve o'clock struck, he rose once more, and set to work. And this he did for several nights. And his father noticed nothing; only once, at supper, he remarked, “It is strange how much oil has been used in this house lately!” This was a shock to Giulio; but the conversation ceased there, and the nightly labor went on.

However, on account of breaking his sleep every night, Giulio did not get sufficient rest: he rose in the morning fatigued, and when he was doing his school work in the evening, he had difficulty in keeping his eyes open. One evening, for the first time in his life, he fell asleep over his copy-book.