“Quacquarà!”——
“Ah! would you hit a child?” This time, if they had not stopped him, he would have broken the head of the barber’s boy, who had boldly approached him near enough to utter the objectionable cry under his very nose. There was trouble enough before Don Mario would let himself be dragged away into the chemist’s shop, which was filled with a laughing crowd. Vito, the chemist’s young man, came forward, very seriously, and said to him—
“What does it matter if they do say Quacquarà to you? You don’t happen to be a quail, do you?”
Don Mario turned furious eyes on him.
“Well; it’s not as if they called you a thief!”
“I am a gentleman, and the son of a gentleman.”
“Well? What does Quacquarà mean? Nothing at all. Quacquarà let it be!”
The chemist and the others present were writhing in convulsions of suppressed laughter at the serious countenance of Vito, who, under the pretext of lecturing Don Mario for his folly, kept on repeating the quail’s cry to his very face, without his perceiving that it was done on purpose.
“Now I,” said he, “if a man were to cry Quacquarà after me, I would give him a halfpenny every time. Quacquarà! Quacquarà! Shout yourselves hoarse, if you like!”
“And, meanwhile, you scoundrel, you’re repeating it to my face,” yelled Don Mario, as he raised his cudgel, perceiving at last that he had been made a fool of. At this point the chemist, who was terrified for the safety of his plate-glass windows, thought it time to interfere; and, taking his arm, drew him out of the shop, condoling with his grievances, and soothing his ruffled feelings as well as he could.