the _fantini_ are often thrown there and flung against the wall.
If there were no mattresses ... crack!" Carmela made a sound as of
breaking bones and hummed a few bars of Chopin's _Marche Funebre_.

Olive shuddered. "You are an impressionist, Carmela. Two dabs of
scarlet and a smear--half a word and a shrug of the shoulders--and you
have expressed a five-act tragedy. I think you could act."

"Oh, I am not clever; I should never be able to remember my part."

"You would improvise," Olive was beginning, when Carmela sprang up and
ran to the window again.

"It is Orazio!" she cried. "He has come in a cab."

The _vetturino_ had pulled his horse up with a jerk of the reins after
the manner of his kind; the wretched animal had slipped and he was now
beating it about the head with the butt end of his whip. His fare had
got out and was looking on calmly.

Olive hastily picked up one of her shoes and flung it at them. It
struck the _vetturino_ just above the ear. "A nasty crack," she said.
"His language is evidently frightful. It is a good thing I can't
understand it, Carmela."

She looked down at the angry, bewildered men, and the _vetturino_,
catching a glimpse of the flushed face framed in a soft fluff of brown
hair, shook his fist and roared a curse upon it.

"Touch that horse again and I'll throw a jug of boiling water over
you," she cried as she drew the green shutters to; and then, in quite
another tone, "Oh, Giovanni, be good. What has the poor beast ever
done to you?" She turned to Carmela. "I know him. His wife does
washing for Signora Aurelia," she explained.

A slow grin overspread the man's heavy face as he rubbed his head.

"Mad English," he said, and then looked closely at the coin the
Lucchese had tendered him.

"Your legal fare," Orazio began pompously.

"Santo Diavolo--"

"I am a lawyer."

"_Si capisce!_ Will you give the signorina her shoe?" He handed it to
Orazio, who took it awkwardly.

"The incident is closed," Olive said as she came back to her cooling
tea. "I hope there is a heaven for horses and a hell for men. Oh, how
I hate cruelty! Carmela, if that is Orazio I must say I sympathise
with Gemma. How could any woman love a mean, narrow-shouldered,
whitey-brown paper thing like that?"

"It is a pity," sighed Carmela as she moved towards the door. "But
after all they are all alike in the end. I must go now to help Maria
lace. I pull a little, and then wait a few minutes. _E un martiri