"You must pardon me," he said, in his peculiar dialect, which was a mixture of many elements. "You must pardon me, most worshipful engineer, but I really need——"
"Need what?" said the engineer, somewhat annoyed. The door opened, and the keen and yellow face of the servant appeared.
"Oh! Scior Parento! Sir Relative!" said she respectfully. She claimed I know not what degree of relationship with the engineer's family, and always addressed him thus. "At this hour? Have you perhaps been to see the Sciora Parenta? The Lady Relative?"
The "Lady Relative" was the engineer's sister, Signora Rigey.
Ribera answered shortly: "Oh! Marianna! How are you?" and went upstairs followed by Marianna, carrying the light.
"My respects," Signor Giacomo began, coming towards him with another light. "I understand and recognise the great inconvenience I am causing, but really——"
Signor Giacomo's small, clean-shaven, pink face, rose above an enormous white stock, and a lean little body, buttoned up in a great, black overcoat, and in the convulsive workings of his lips and eyebrows as well as in his troubled eyes, the most comical anxiety was expressed.
"What is the matter now?" asked the engineer, somewhat sharply. He, the most upright and straightforward man alive, had little sympathy with the hesitation of poor, timid Signor Giacomo.
"Allow me," Puttini began, and, turning to the servant, said harshly:
"Begone, you! Go into the kitchen. You will come when I call for you. Go, I say! Why don't you do what I tell you? Where is your respect for me? I command here! I am the master!"