expecting him at any moment and I am keeping the line open in case he arrives.”
“A costly procedure,” the Colonel said. “Get me a reading on who’s there so we don’t waste time. I want to know exactly who is there.”
Arnaldo spoke guardedly into the mouthpiece of the telephone.
He covered the mouth of the phone with his hand and said, “I am talking to Ettore. He says the Barone Alvarito is not there. The Count Andrea is there and he is rather drunk, Ettore says, but not too drunk for you to have fun together. The group of ladies that comes in each afternoon are there and there is a Greek Princess, that you know, and several people that you do not know. Riff-raff from the American Consulate who have stayed on since noon.”
“Tell him to call back when the riff-raff goes and I’ll come over.”
Arnaldo spoke into the phone, then turned to the Colonel who was looking out of the window at the Dome of the Dogana, “Ettore says he will try to move them, but he is afraid Cipriani will not like it.”
“Tell him not to move them. They don’t have to work this afternoon and there is no reason why they should not get drunk like any other man. I just don’t want to see them.”
“Ettore says he will call back. He told me to tell you he thinks the position will fall of its own weight.”
“Thank him for calling,” the Colonel said.
He watched a gondola working up the Canal against
