He Does Not Eat Them With Deliberate Mastication; He Does Not
Even - Like Your Ordinary Amateur - Drink Them In Separate
Gulps; but he
contrives, by some swiftly-adroit process of levitation, that the whole
plateful shall rise in a noiseless
And unbroken flood from the table to
his mouth, whence it glides down his gullet with the relentless ease of
a river pouring into a cavern. Altogether, a series of films depicting
him at work upon a meal would make the fortune of a picture-show
company - in England. Not here, however; such types are too common to be
remarked, the reason being that boys are seldom sent to boarding schools
where stereotyped conventions of "good form" are held up for their
imitation, but brought up at home by adoring mothers who care little for
such externals or, if they do, have no great authority to enforce their
views. On entering the world, these eccentricities in manner are proudly
clung to, as a sign of manly independence.
Death has made hideous gaps in the short interval. The kindly
Vice-Consul at Catanzaro is no more; the mayor of Cotrone, whose permit
enabled Gissing to visit that orchard by the riverside, has likewise
joined the majority; the housemaid of the "Concordia," the domestic serf
with dark and fiercely flashing eyes - dead! And dead is mine hostess,
"the stout, slatternly, sleepy woman, who seemed surprised at my demand
for food, but at length complied with it."
But the little waiter is alive and now married; and Doctor Sculco still
resides in his aristocratic palazzo up that winding way in the old
town, with the escutcheon of a scorpion - portentous emblem for a
doctor - over its entrance.
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