“Listen to me. Before the Revolution everything was different; Now the fish are all adulterated; I tell you I know it.”
“No, the anchovies feel the north-east wind twenty-four hours before it comes,” resumed Padron ’Ntoni, “it has always been so; the anchovy is a cleverer fish than the tunny. Now, beyond the Capo dei Mulini, they sweep the sea with nets, fine ones, all at once.”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” began old Fortunato. “It is those beastly steamers beating the water with their confounded wheels. What will you have? Of course the fish are frightened and don’t come any more; that’s what it is.”
The son of La Locca sat listening, with his mouth open, scratching his head.
“Bravo!” he said. “That way they wouldn’t find any fish at Messina nor at Syracuse, and instead they came from there by the railway by quintals at a time.”
“For that matter, get out of it the best way you can,” cried Cipolla, angrily. “I wash my hands of it. I don’t care a fig about it. I have my farm and my vineyards to live upon, without your fish.”
Padron ’Ntoni, with his nose in the air, observed, “If the north-east wind doesn’t get up before midnight, the Provvidenza will have time to get round the Cape.”
From the campanile overhead came the slow strokes of the deep bell. “One hour after sunset!” observed Padron Cipolla.
Padron ’Ntoni made the holy sign, and replied, “Peace to the living and rest to the dead.”
“Don Giammaria has fried vermicelli for supper,” observed Goosefoot, sniffing towards the parsonage windows.