Poor Don Mario! No sooner was he seen coming round the corner with his rusty, narrow-brimmed, stove-pipe hat, nearly a foot high, and his overcoat with long tails fluttering in the wind, than every one—first the boys, then the men, the loafers on Piazza Buglio, and even the gentlemen at the Casino—began to salute him, on every side, with the cry of the quail, “Quacquarà! Quacquarà!” just because they knew that it enraged him.
He stopped and stood at bay, staring round, brandishing his great cudgel, and shaking his head threateningly. Then he would take two or three steps forward, looking fixedly at them, in order to discover one or other of the impudent wretches who so far forgot the respect due to him, the son and grandson of lawyers—to him who stood a hundred times higher than all those gentlemen of the Casino.... But in vain! On the right hand and the left, before and behind, rose the shouts and whistles, “Quacquarà! Quacquarà!”
“Don’t excite yourself! Let them shout!”
“If I do not kill some one, they will never be quiet!”
“Do you want to go to the convict prison for nothing?”
“I will send them there!”
He became red as a turkey-cock, raving and gesticulating and foaming at the mouth.
“They would be quiet enough, if you did not get angry.”
“They are cowards! Why don’t they come out like men, and say it to my face?”