All right. I love more than any son of the great bitch alive, the Colonel said, but not aloud.
Aloud, he said, ''Where are you getting on that call, Arnaldo?''
''Cipriani has not come in,'' the waiter said. ''They are expecting him at any moment and I am keeping the line open in case he arrives.''
''A costly procedure,'' the Colonel said. ''Get me a reading on who's there so we don't waste time.
I want to know exactly who is there.''
Arnaldo spoke guardedly into the mouthpiece of the telephone.
He covered the mouth of the phone with his hand and said, ''I am talking to Ettore.
He says the Barone Alvarito is not there.
The Count Andrea is there and he is rather drunk, Ettore says, but not too drunk for you to have fun together.
The group of ladies that comes in each afternoon are there and there is a Greek Princess, that you know, and several people that you do not know.
Riff-raff from the American Consulate who have stayed on since noon.''
''Tell him to call back when the riff-raff goes and I'll come over.''
Arnaldo spoke into the phone, then turned to the Colonel who was looking out of the window at the Dome of the Dogana, ''Ettore says he will try to move them, but he is afraid Cipriani will not like it.''
''Tell him not to move them.
They don't have to work this afternoon and there is no reason why they should not get drunk like any other man.
I just don't want to see them.''
''Ettore says he will call back.
He told me to tell you he thinks the position will fall of its own weight.''
''Thank him for calling,'' the Colonel said.
He watched a gondola working up the Canal against the wind and thought, not with Americans drinking.
I know they are bored.
In this town, too.
They are bored in this town.
I know the place is cold and their wages are inadequate and what fuel costs.
I admire their wives, for the valiant efforts they make to transport Keokuk to Venice, and their children already speak Italian like little Venetians.
But no snapshots today, Jack.
Today we are giving the snapshots, the barroom confidences, the unwanted comradely drinks and the tedious woes of the Consular services a miss.
''No second, third or fourth vice-consuls today, Arnaldo.''
''There are some very pleasant people from the Consulate.''
''Yeah,'' the Colonel said. ''They had a hell of a nice consul here in 1918.
Everybody liked him.
I'll try to remember his name.''
''You go back a long way back, my Colonel.''
''I go back so damn far back that it isn't funny.''
''Do you remember everything from the old days?''
''Everything,'' the Colonel said. ''Carroll was the man's name.''
''I have heard of him.''
''You weren't born then.''
''Do you think it is necessary to have been born at the time to know about things that have happened in this town, my Colonel?''
''You're perfectly correct.
Tell me, does everybody always know about everything that happens in this town?''
''Not everybody.
But nearly everybody,'' the waiter said. ''After all, sheets are sheets and some one has to change them, and some one has to wash them.
Naturally I do not refer to the sheets in a hotel such as this.''
''I've had some damn good times in my life without sheets.''
''Naturally.
But the gondoliers, while they are the most cooperative and, for me, the finest people that we have, speak among themselves.''
''Naturally.''
''Then the clergy.
While they would never violate the secrecy of the confessional, talk among themselves.''