''Then don't strain,'' the Colonel said, ''and you will never get piles.''
''I wouldn't mind it if I was a Colonel.''
''I never mind it.''
''You'd be over-run like a dose of salts,'' the waiter said.
''Don't tell the Honorable Pacciardi,'' the Colonel said.
He and the bar-tender had a joke about this because the Honorable Pacciardi was Minister of Defense in the Italian Republic.
He was the same age as the Colonel and had fought very well in the first world war, and had also fought in Spain as a battalion Commander where the Colonel had known him when he, himself, was an observer.
The seriousness with which the Honorable Pacciardi took the post of Minister of Defense of an indefensible country was a bond between the Colonel and the bar-tender.
The two of them were quite practical men and the vision of the Honorable Pacciardi defending the Italian Republic stimulated their minds.
''It's sort of funny up there,'' the Colonel said, ''and I don't mind it.''
''We must mechanize the Honorable Pacciardi,'' the bar-tender said. ''And supply him with the atomic bomb.''
''I've got three of them in the back of the car,'' the Colonel said. ''The new model, complete with handles.
But we can't leave him unarmed.
We must supply him with botulism and anthrax.''
''We cannot fail the Honorable Pacciardi,'' the bartender said. ''Better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep.''
''Better to die on our feet than to live on our knees,'' the Colonel said. ''Though you better get on your belly damn fast if you want to stay alive in plenty places.''
''Colonel, do not say anything subversive.''
''We will strangle them with our bare hands,'' the Colonel said. ''A million men will spring to arms overnight.''
''Whose arms?'' the bar-tender asked.
''All that will be attended to,'' the Colonel said. ''It's only a phase in the Big Picture.''
Just then the driver came in the door.
The Colonel saw that while they had been joking, he had not watched the door and he was annoyed, always, with any lapse of vigilance or of security.
''What the hell's been keeping you, Jackson?
Have a drink.''
''No, thank you, sir.''
You prissy jerk, the Colonel thought. But I better stop riding him, he corrected.
''We'll be going in a minute,'' the Colonel said. ''I've been trying to learn Italian from my friend here.'' He turned to look at the Milan profiteers; but they were gone.
I'm getting awfully slow, he thought. Somebody will take me any day now.
Maybe even the Honorable Pacciardi, he thought.
''How much do I owe you?'' he asked the bar-tender shortly.
The bar-tender told him and looked at him with his wise Italian eyes, not merry now, although the lines of merriment were clearly cut where they radiated from the corners of each eye.
I hope there is nothing wrong with him, the bar-tender thought. I hope to God, or anything else, there's nothing really bad.
''Good-bye, my Colonel,'' he said.
''Ciao,'' the Colonel said. ''Jackson, we are going down the long ramp and due north from the exit to where the small launches are moored.
The varnished ones.
There is a porter with the two bags.
It is necessary to let them carry them since they have a concession.''
''Yes, sir,'' said Jackson.
The two of them went out the door and no one looked back at anyone.
At the imbarcadero, the Colonel tipped the man who had carried their two bags and then looked around for a boatman he knew.
He did not recognize the man in the launch that was first on call, but the boatman said, ''Good-day, my Colonel.
I'm the first.''
''How much is it to the Gritti?''
''You know as well as I, my Colonel.
We do not bargain.
We have a fixed tariff.''
''What's the tariff?''
''Three thousand five hundred.''
''We could go on the vaporetto for sixty.''
''And nothing prevents you going,'' the boatman, who was an elderly man with a red but un-choleric face, said. ''They won't take you to the Gritti but they will stop at the imbarcadero past Harry's, and you can telephone for someone from the Gritti to get your bags.''