“By hookey, you’re right! Who do you think it could have been?”
“I haven’t got any idea. Maybe our friend, the handsome waiter,” suggested Herc.
“I wonder,” mused Ned, but at that instant, as if to contradict his thoughts, the proprietor of the Villa Espenza appeared from quite another direction, balancing his tray gracefully and humming a song.
“Is there any one but ourselves here to-day?” inquired Ned, as he came up.
“Alas! no,” was the reply, “business is very bad. You are the only customers we have had for some days. The revolution has put business—what you Americans call ‘to the bad.’”
After ordering and drinking more sodas the boys and their older companion rose and, bidding farewell to the bowing proprietor and promising to call again, started for the ship.
“Say, that fellow reminds me of somebody, and I can’t think who,” said Ned, as they set off down the hillside.
“Same here,” murmured Herc. “I have it!” he exclaimed suddenly, “that chap in Brooklyn—the fellow who wanted to know what was going on on board the Beale.”
“Oh, that dago,” grunted Stanley, who was acquainted with the incident, which the boys had related to him. “Somehow I’ve got an idea you’ll hear more of that chap.”
“I hope not,” responded Ned. “I wouldn’t pick him out for a constant companion.”