“I told Gostino. He is just coming.”
“And so you’re from Florence, eh?” asked the chaplain, turning to me.
“At your service.”
“A wretched year, my dear sir! If it does not rain soon we shall never get any crops to speak of.... A year ago this very day I had taken fifty-six birds by ten o’clock; and this morning, before I came away to mass at eight, we had caught three miserable little things, and an accursed hawk that has half bitten my hand to pieces—look! Are they taking any at Florence?”
“To tell the truth, I have never asked.”
“Is the Prior of San Gaggio catching any this year?—is he catching any?”
“To my knowledge ... I could not say at all.”
“Ah! because last Friday he sent to tell me that he had not even had the decoy-cages made. He says that Father Lorenzo della Santissima Annunziata is not well. Is that true?”
“To tell the truth ... I do not know.”
“What!—do you know nothing, then?”