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chickens escaped and Tomalino generously offered it to Antonio as a gift, but Antonia doubted the wisdom of placing this refugee among his own nine healthy pets.

Now Tomalino was really meant to be an astute business man rather than a mere peasant. Yesterday he imparted to Antonio, more by gesture than by words, that a clever deal was perhaps on the way: his thirty-five plague-stricken black-crested chickens, well worth forty lire the kilo, were to be bagged by a caterer who dealt in edibles of the sort.

December 21st. Heavy aeroplanes buzzed over our heads all night long. A great battle is soon to be fought near Rome. "No English or American soldier now fighting in Italy will ever return to his country again," so the Germans are quoted as saying. Natalie's little girl protégée who is always putting questions, asked one of our pacifist visitors yesterday to explain to her what this meant and the visitor did so in the following terms: "Certain little boys named Franky Roosevelt, Winnie Churchill and Josey Stalin are bent on getting hold of a very bad little boy named Addy Hitler whom they thoroughly detest. To gain their ends they would destroy Addy's house, his town, his country, nay Addy must be caught even though the whole world would be destroyed. And this is what comes of letting grim little boys rule great countries; this is why thousands and thousands of young men will never return to their homes again." "But," interrupted another even more rabid anti-war visitor, completely forgetting the child, "Hitler is a scapegoat, 

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