"Ye're unco excited, man," in deliberate Scotch. "It will dae your stomach nae sort o' guid to be in that state."

"My stomach will do well enough," John said stiffly. "It is not my stomach I have to worry about."

"The trouble with the lungs is past. It is in the stomach, it is the stomach that must be watched."

"Dr Clark," John said firmly, "I took this to be a social visit. In the presence of Signor or Mr Gulielmi this talk of stomachs is to say the least unseemly."

I take to him, thought Gulielmi. He is a little man and no more than a boy, but he comports himself with Apollonian dignity. I take to the large eyes and the quivering nose and the big overlip, the strong chin, the hair that is both fire and cornfield. Can he live to be a poet? He cannot breathe well, but he looks well supplied of energy. He said: "I will be happy to hear of stomachs in a capacity not clinical. Are you eating well here in Rome?"

"Now well," John said. "Filthily before. But I threw our imported dinner out of that window two afternoons ago. Scrawny raw chicken and filthy macaroni and filthier rice pudding out on to the steps for the dogs to pounce on. So the point was well taken and the trattoria now sends up food we can eat. The action was better than any speech. It was done with a smile and the fellow with the basket smiled too."

"And your Italian, how is your Italian?"

"I read Dante with the help of Gary's translation. Reading is, however, not speaking."

"You must learn our Roman speech, it may amuse you."

"There's hardly time." It was said without self-pity. They heard boots on marble approaching. "Severn," said John. "Sabrina fair." The young man who entered, mouth open smilingly as to drink in cheerfully whatever the evening sent by way of company, was indeed fair though somewhat washed out, his good looks girlish enough. He was introduced to Gulielmi. He said, with an atrocious accent: