We reached
the house after threading our way through a couple of tortuous alleys
leading off a street which called itself the Via Servi, and under an
archway with a window from which a girl blew Mr. Fett an unabashed
kiss across a box of geraniums. The master of it, a Messer' Nicola
(by surname Fazio) had rooms for us and to spare. To him Mr. Fett
handed the market-basket, after extracting from it an enormous melon,
and bade him escort the Princess upstairs and give her choice of the
cleanest apartments at his disposal. He then led us to the main
living-room where, from a corner-cupboard, he produced glasses,
plates, spoons, a bowl of sugar, and a flask of white wine.
The flask he pushed towards Marc'antonio and Stephanu: the melon he
divided with his clasp-knife.
"You will join us?" he asked, profering a slice. "You will drink,
then, at least? Ah, that is better. And will you convey my
apologies to your two bandits and beg them to excuse my conversing
with you in English? To tell the truth"--here, having helped them to
a slice apiece and laid one aside for the Princess, he took the
remainder upon his own plate--"though as a rule we make collation at
noon or a little before, my English stomach cries out against an
empty morning.
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