It's rather trying to the American
temperament to be obliged to order a hurried luncheon from the
market-gardener."
"So! In America you have him not--the market garden? You are each his
own vegetable. Yes? Ah, how much better than the poor Italian! But
Mistra and Madame Wick, they have not, I hope, the indisposition?"
"Well, I'm afraid they have, Count--something like that. They said I was
to ask you to excuse them. You see they've been sight-seeing the whole
morning, and that's something that can't be done by halves in your city.
The stranger has to put his whole soul into it, hasn't he?"
"Ah, the whole soul! It is too fatiguing," Count Filgiatti assented. He
glanced at me uncertainly, and rose. "Kindly may I ask that you give my
deepest afflictions to Mistra and Madame Wick for their health?"
"Oh," I said, "if you _must_! But I'm here, you know." I put no hauteur
into my tone, because I saw that it was a misunderstanding.
He still hesitated and I remembered that the Filgiatti intelligence
probably dated from the Middle Ages, and had undergone very little
alteration since.
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