"Signore!" said Dolores.
"Didn't he, Dick?'"
"He did," said Dick; "of course he did."
"Oh, that _uomicciuolo_ will say any thing," said Dolores, contemptuously snapping her fingers in Dick's face.
"Why, Signore. Look you. How is it possible? Think what accommodations! Gaze upon that bed! Gaze upon that furniture! Contemplate that prospect of the busy street!"
"Why, it's the most wretched room in town," cried Buttons. "I've been ashamed to ask my friends here."
"Ah, wretch!" cried Dolores, with flashing eyes. "You well know that you were never so well lodged at home. This miserable! This a room to be ashamed of! Away, American savage! And your friends, who are they? Do you lodge with the lazaroni?"
"You said that you would charge two piastres. I will pay no more; no, not half a carline. How dare you send me a bill for eighteen piastres? I will pay you six piastres for the three weeks. Your bill for eighteen is a cheat. I throw it away. Behold!"
And Buttons, tearing the paper into twenty fragments, scattered them over the floor.
"Ah!" cried Dolores, standing before him, with her arms folded, and her face all aglow with beautiful anger; "you call it a cheat, do you? You would like, would you not, to run off and pay nothing? That is the custom, I suppose, in America. But you can not do that in this honest country."