“What is the matter with you?” exclaimed the beggar, in a surprised tone.
“Why ... what?” demanded Fernet, in a trembling voice. “Do I look so ...? Pray, tell me, is there anything unusual about me?”
“Why, your face.... Have you looked at yourself in the glass? Your skin is the color of stale pastry.”
Fernet tried to laugh. “It is nothing. I have been drinking too much coffee lately. I must stop it.”
It was a fine morning. The sun was shining and the air was brisk and full of little rippling breezes. The bay lay like a blue-green peacock ruffling its gilded feathers. The city had a genial, smiling countenance. But Fernet was out of humor with all this full-blown content. He had spent a wretched night—not sleepless, but full of disturbing dreams. Dreams about Minetti and his London neighbor and the empty sugar-bowl. All night he had dreamed about this empty sugar-bowl. It seemed that as soon as he had it filled Minetti would slyly empty it again. He tried stowing sugar away in his pockets, but when he put his hand in to draw out a lump a score or more of pellets spilled over the floor. Then he remembered saying:
“I shall call on Minetti’s London neighbor. Maybe he will have some sugar.”
He walked miles and miles, and finally beat upon a strange door. A man wrapped in a black coat up to his eyebrows opened to his knock.
“Are you Flavio Minetti’s London neighbor?” he demanded, boldly.
The figure bowed. Fernet drew the cracked sugar-bowl from under his arm.
“Will you oblige me with a little sugar?” he asked, more politely.