“You have had a long voyage, amico? And successful fishing?”
For a moment I was confused and knew not what to answer, but gathering my wits together I smiled and answered readily in the affirmative.
“And you?” I said, gayly. “How goes the cholera?”
The landlord shook his head dolefully.
“Holy Joseph! do not speak of it. The people die like flies in a honey-pot. Only yesterday—body of Bacchus!—who would have thought it?”
And he sighed deeply as he poured out the steaming coffee, and shook his head more sorrowfully than before.
“Why, what happened yesterday?” I asked, though I knew perfectly well what he was going to say; “I am a stranger in Naples, and empty of news.”
The perspiring Pietro laid a fat thumb on the marble top of the table, and with it traced a pattern meditatively.
“You never heard of the rich Count Romani?” he inquired.
I made a sign in the negative, and bent my face over my coffee-cup.