At the same moment Angelica the cook, a mite of a crone with a Roman nose, carried a steaming soup into the dining room, set it on the table, and called out in the shrillest Genovese:
“Ecco, signori; the minestrone is served, and the most beautiful minestrone I have made since the Feast of the Mother.”
After his three weeks of steerage fare Bertino fell upon the dinner with a zest that delighted his uncle, but dismayed Carolina, and caused the rims of Angelica’s eyes to spread until they were as round as the O of Giotto.
“Well, did you stop to pick up any gold in the street?” asked Signor Di Bello, winking at his sister, and sprinkling grated Parmesan over a ragout of green peppers. “I suppose you have your valise filled with it.”
“Ma che!” said Bertino, holding up his plate and looking wise. “Do you think I am such a fool? I don’t expect to pick up money; but shall I tell you something? Well, it is this: In this country I shall soon make enough money to fill that valise.”
The others dropped their knives and forks and regarded him with amazement.
“By the egg of Columbus!” exclaimed Signor Di Bello. “Are you not to work in my shop?”
“Oh, yes; of course.”
“Then how do you expect to make so much money?”
There was no reason for it; but Bertino, oddly enough, yielded to a sudden impulse to repress the truth. Cocking his eye first to the ceiling and then on the tablecloth, he uttered a fib that concealed his and Armando’s darling project for selling life-size busts in America.