“Madre di dio, amico, che fa caldo! Vuoi bere?”
I sipped the glass of wine offered by the Italian—to have drunk it all would have been “bad form”—and sat down to give an account of myself.
“Aber du bist kein Deutscher?” cried a grizzled vagabond, when I had finished.
“Amerikaner,” I replied.
“American!” shouted the band, in a chorus in which European tongues ran riot, “Why, there is another American knocking about town. He’ll drop in before long; meanwhile, have a drink.”
I waited impatiently, for months had passed since I had spoken with a fellow countryman. In the course of a half-hour there strolled in a swarthy specimen of the genus vagabundus, attired in a ragged misfit.
“Ach! Du Amerikaner!” cried the chorus. “Here is a countryman of yours.”
I accosted the newcomer. “How are you, Jack?”
He took place on a bench, stared at me a moment, and demanded, in Italian:—
“What country are you from?”