“Iv coorse ye don’t. Sure the signorinies are not expected to, and they be ould enough to vote ivry hour on ’lection day. It’s lucky y’are to be goin’ back to the ould country. How long is it y’re out?”
“Ees twelf year dat I’m in deesa countree.”
“Twelve years! Howly Mother! And ye’re not married yet! Troth I was Signory Tomah-toe the first year I landed.”
“What I’m care?” retorted Carolina. “You mague too moocha noise from de mout. Ees better you goin’ keep-a still.”
Luckily for the cash interests of the bank, Signor Tomato appeared at this point, for Bridget was not a woman to adopt any one’s suggestion that she hold her tongue. Carolina got her steamship ticket, and the banker pocketed the first commission he had received in a week.
There was meat in the Tomato soup that night, and on the way from the butcher’s Bridget, with Pat, Mike, and Biddy at her apron hem, stopped in the Caffè of the Beautiful Sicilian and bought each of them a green cake out of the chromatic display in the window. While the youngsters were all eyes and hands for the pastry, Bridget was all sight and mind for a certain living picture that she beheld in the half gloom of the caffè’s innermost depth. Seated at a table were Bertino and Juno the Superb. She was tipping pensively a glass of red wine, and he, with paper and ink before him, writhed in the throes of pen-wielding.
“Ho, ho, me beauty!” said Bridget to herself on the way home. “I’m thinkin’ the ould wan ud have a worrud to say about that. So the nephew is afther her along wid the uncle, and she afther both fish wid the wan hook. Well, I hope the gossoon gets her, and it’ll do him anny good. Di Belly ought to be cut out, the ould divvil, wid his winkin’ and blinkin’ and collyfoxin’ afther young gerruls. But it’s noane iv my potaties, and I’ll not disgrace mesilf talkin’ iv it. If who’s-this—Sara the Pepper Pod—iver got hold iv it though, wouldn’t there be a whillihu in Mulberry! Thim ghinny wimmin do be good for nothin’ but makin’ trouble wid their tongues. And phat am I sayin’, annyway? Talkin’ iv the ghinnies! Faith I’m half ghinny mesilf.” When she reached the bank she said to Signor Tomato, “There’s trouble brewin’ in the Di Belly family.”
“Troub in de fam! Ees what for?” He took an ancient black pipe from his mouth and stood up, all attention. She told him what she had seen in the gloom of the caffè. “Ha, ha!” he cried, placing a forefinger wisely beside his nose, as he always did when quoting his Neapolitan saws, “the mouse dances a tarantella when the cat takes a siesta.”
“True for ye, Dominick; and a jewel iv a dance ’twill be agin the ould maid’s comin’ from Italy. Bad ’cess to her annyhow, and may the divvil fly away wid her back hair! Tellin’ me to hould me tongue!”
When the boiling pot had filled the bank with its savour, she went to the door and looked with pride on her raven-curled trio in the roadway playing “duck on a tomato can.”