With all its noise and bluster, an Italian crowd does not know the rudiments of football. Even the wretch who had dispossessed me of my first vantage-ground was far behind when I reached the front rank and paused to survey the scene of conflict. Inside the wicket a dozen perspiring policemen were guarding several huge baskets of that baseball bread already mentioned. Beyond them stood the instrument that had attracted my attention—a pair of wooden scales that looked fully capable of giving the avoirdupois of an ox. Still further on, an officer, whose expression suggested that he was recording nominations of candidates to fill the King’s seat, presided over a ponderous book, a pen the size of a stiletto behind each ear, and one resembling a young bayonet in his hand.
One by one the citizens of Verona shot through a small gate into the enclosure from the surging multitude outside as from a catapult; to be brought up with a round turn by the shouted question, “Pound or two pounds?” Once weighed out, the desired number of loaves traveled rapidly from hand to hand on one side of the official line; while the applicant, struggling to keep pace with them on the other, paused before the registering clerk to answer several pertinent personal questions, corralled his purchase at the table of the receiving teller, and made his escape as best he could.
Almost before I had time to study the workings of this system, the press of humanity behind sent me spinning through the gate. “Two pounds!” I shouted, as I swept by the scales en route for the book. Just in front of me a gaunt creature paused and gave his residence as Florence. “No bread for you!” roared every officer within hearing; policemen, sergeants, and clerks, in a rousing chorus, “Only bread for Veronese! Get out of here!” and, impelled by two official boots, the stranger stood not on the order of his going.
That Florentine was a god-send to me. In my innocence I had already opened my mouth to shout “Americano” to his Self-Complacency behind the volume, and, had that fateful word escaped me, I should have gone “paneless” through the long hours of a long day.
“Residenza?” shouted the registrar, as I entered his field of vision.
“Verona, signore.”
“Professione?”
“Calzolaio, signore.”
“Street and number.”
I remembered the name of one street and tacked on a number haphazard.