“Arrah, si; for signorinies like yersilf and signories, sure.” In business matters Bridget always aided her husband with a corroborant note.
“Do you know what happened to a friend of mine who went on that other line?” the banker continued. “He caught the grip. Why? Now, signorina, your attention, and I will tell you. The Duke Line is not Italian, eh? Well, what kind of food do you suppose he got from those Englishmen? Bifsoup, bifsoup, bifsoup; rosbif, rosbif, rosbif. And not a grain of cheese for the soup! For eighteen days he saw macaroni only once, and then it was cooked without oil and had not even the tail of an anchovy or a piece of kidney to flavour it. For eighteen long days he had not so much as a smell of garlic or the sight of a pepper pod. Do you wonder that he caught the grip?”
Carolina was impressed, and Bridget clinched the argument with “Arrah, divvil a wonder!”
“Besides,” Signor Tomato went on, “that line is what we navigators call uncertain, lame ships. The signorina will recall the proverb, ‘If you go with the lame you learn to limp.’”
“I wish to sail to-morrow. Give me a second-class ticket.”
“To-morrow! Boiling blood of San Gennaro! But I will do it, signorina; I will get the ticket.”
Instantly Banca Tomato became a scene of bustle and excitement. The padrone sprang for the door, pushing aside Bridget and scattering her brood. He darted behind the curtain and reappeared in a second with his coat and hat.
“In ten minutes you shall know,” he said, making off in the direction of Broadway, where there was a real agency of the line.
“Will ye sit down?” said Bridget, placing the family chair near Carolina, at the foot of the Jack Tar. “Wisha! Black toimes it is for bankers, and no babies comin’ to kape the wolf from the dure. It’s mesilf that remimbers this day four years come Patrick’s mornin’ when me Biddy first saw the light. Arrah, manny’s the family wanted me thin for a wet nurse, and a fine pinny had they to pay, thim that got Bridget Tomah-toe. Thin it was meat in the soup ivry day. And now phat is it? Cabbage in a sup iv water, and secondhand cabbage, too, manny’s the toime. But I’m after raisin’ the little darlints as good as anny in Mulberry, and much better, should anny wan ax ye.”
“Who ask-a me? I’m know northeen ’bout dat,” said Carolina, whose English scholarship had few equals in the colony.