Think well if you will have him,' I would say, 'and if you will not, give me an honest answer and God bless you and let it be the end.' That is how I would speak, and she would think about it for a week or perhaps two, and then she would say to me, 'Bastianello, tell your brother that I will have him.' Or else she would say, 'Bastianello, tell your brother that I thank him, but that I have no heart in it.' That is what she would say." "It may be," said Ruggiero carelessly.

"But of course she would thank, and say 'Who is this Ruggiero ?' and besides, the world is full of women." Bastianello was about to ask the interpretation of this rather enigmatical speech when there was a stir on the pier and two or three boats put out, the men standing in them and sculling them stern foremost.
"Who is it ?" asked Bastianello of the boatman who passed nearest to him.
"The Giovannina," answered the man.
She had returned from her last voyage to Calabria, having taken macaroni from Amalfi and bringing back wine of Verbicaro.

A fine boat, the Giovannina, able to carry twenty tons in any weather, and water-tight too, being decked with hatches over which you can stretch and batten down tarpaulin.

A pretty sight as she ran up to the end of the breakwater, old Luigione standing at the stern with the tiller between his knees and the slack of the main-sheet in his hand.

She was running wing and wing, with her bright new sails spreading far over the water on each side.