He was very angry. I also told him the remark you made about his
mother."
"Tell him again, to-morrow."
It seldom pays to be rude. It never pays to be only half rude.
In October--and we are now at midsummer--there occurred a little
adventure which shows the risks one may run at a time like this.
I was in Rome, walking homewards at about eleven at night along the
still crowded Corso and thinking, as I went along, of my impending
journey northwards for which the passport was already vised, when there
met me a florid individual accompanied by two military officers. We
stared at one another. His face was familiar to me, though I knew not
where I had seen it. Then he introduced himself. He was a director of
the Banca d'ltalia. And was I not the gentleman who had recently been to
Orvinio? I remembered.
"The last time I was there," I said, "was about a month ago. I fancy we
had some conversation in the motor up from Mandela."
"That is so. And now, however disagreeable it may be, I feel myself
obliged to perform a patriotic duty. This is war-time. I would ask you
to be so good as to accompany us to the nearest police-station."
"Which is not far off," I replied. "There is one up the next street on
our right."
We walked there, all four of us, without saying another word. "What have
I been doing?" I wondered. Then we climbed upstairs.
Here, at a well-lighted table in a rather stuffy room, sat a delegato or
commissario--I forget which--surrounded, despite the lateness of the
hour, by one or two subordinates.
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