“Do you think that he will be tough?” he asked the girl in Italian.
“No,” the Gran Maestro assured them, still bowing with the lobster. “He’s truly not tough. He’s only big. You know the type.”
“All right,” the Colonel said. “Serve him.”
“And what will you drink?”
“What do you want, Daughter?”
“What you want.”
“Capri Bianco,” the Colonel said. “Secco and really cold.”
“I have it ready,” said the Gran Maestro.
“We are having fun,” the girl said. “We are having it again and without sorrow. Isn’t he an imposing lobster?”
“He is,” the Colonel answered. “And he better damn well be tender.”
“He will be,” the girl told him. “The Gran Maestro doesn’t lie. Isn’t it wonderful to have people who do not lie?”
“Very wonderful and quite rare,” the Colonel said. “I was thinking just now of a man named Georgie Patton who possibly never told the truth in his life.”
“Do you ever lie?”
“I’ve lied four times. But each time I was very tired. That’s not an excuse,” he added.
“I lied a lot when I was a little girl. But mostly it was making up stories. Or I hope so. But I have never lied to my own advantage.”
“I have,” said the Colonel. “Four times.”
