“Here we are!” announced Mario, as though they were expected; “Gian-Luca, this is yet another waiter. His name is Schmidt, and moreover he is Swiss, a very excellent fellow.”
“Good Morgen,” said Schmidt, who spoke no Italian, but who prided himself on his English; “I vill not be a tick, not ein half a tick—it is nearly completed already.”
“Do not hurry,” said Gian-Luca, surveying him gravely; “we can wait while you finish your tie.”
Schmidt grinned. “Do not hurry? Vell, my friend, I must hurry; if I do not I get in the soup.” He turned from the glass to put on his coat, and pushing past Mario was gone.
“He is always like that,” said Mario disapprovingly. “He is always in too great a hurry; a waiter must be quick, but never in a hurry. They are foolish people, these Swiss.”
He began to unearth some old dress clothes from the crowded peg on the door. Gian-Luca undid his brown paper parcel, and together they struggled to dress. There was so little room that whenever they moved they promptly collided with each other.
“Pazienza!” sighed Mario in a vague, patient protest, as Gian-Luca bumped him with his elbow.
“I do not understand my apron,” said Gian-Luca. “It seems to me very wide.”
“I will show you,” Mario told him kindly. “The wider it is the better.” He folded Gian-Luca into the apron which swathed his legs like a shroud. “Ecco!” exclaimed Mario. “And now you are ready, and very fine indeed you look, piccino,” and he smiled with affection and approval.
II
Upstairs it was certainly more cheerful than the basement, it also smelt less of stopped sink. The restaurant was a long, low, well-lighted room, with a stand of aspidistras in the center. Here and there, in a pot tied up in pink paper, a fern was trying not to die; there were many little tables, and the one good-sized window was embellished with red cotton curtains.
“Some day they will be silk,” thought Gian-Luca when he saw them, remembering Mario’s words.
“Ah!” exclaimed the Padrone, jumping up from a table at which he had been drinking vermouth. “You are late as usual, accursedly late. I am sick of you and your lateness!”
Mario’s eyes goggled: “I am sorry—” he faltered.
“My apron delayed us,” piped Gian-Luca.
The Padrone stared. “And who may you be? Ah, yes, I remember, the new piccolo.”
“At what time would you wish me to arrive?” inquired Gian-Luca, assuming the air of a man.
“Half-past nine and not a minute later,” he was told.
“I will come,” said Gian-Luca calmly.
“That is well,” growled the Padrone, rather taken aback, “that is well. Time is money at the Capo. And now go and wash the glass in those doors; after that you must sweep out the restaurant. Come here you, Schmidt, and give him a baize apron and show him the buckets and brooms!” he bellowed. “Corpo di Bacco! Where is the fool? Santa Madonna! where is he?”
III
Gian-Luca washed the glass, and then, just for fun, he polished all the brass as well. He brushed down the steps and finally retired to sweep up the restaurant floor. From the corner of his eye he watched Mario and Schmidt scuttling in and out of the pantry; they were very busy laying the tables for luncheon, and Mario puffed a good deal. Schmidt, who was rather a painstaking fellow, had a habit of breathing on things, especially the glasses, which he always suspected, and once, when he thought he detected a smudge, he spat on his finger and removed it. Gian-Luca, thumping about on his knees, watched the proceedings with interest.
“Nun was! You not got those clean serviettes yet? Mein Gott! You take long, venever you be ready?” he heard Schmidt grumbling at Mario.
“Mind you your business!” shouted Mario hotly. “I know how I set the table!” Schmidt laughed. “You not spit on the glasses,” went on Mario, who had looked up and caught him in the act.
“Then why you bring them in dirty from the pantry?”
“You not make them any cleaner with spit!”
“Was? Do you say then that my mouth is dirty?” Schmidt’s face was now red with temper, “Ich ask; you perhaps would accuse my mouth?”
“Dio!” groaned Mario, who was limping a little. “What do I care about your mouth!”
Schmidt went back to the pantry, muttering in German, and Mario stood still for a moment; very gently he began to rub his sore joint against the calf of his leg, then he sighed, and mopping his brow with his napkin he too hobbled off to the pantry.
Gian-Luca, left alone, settled into his stride—the proverbial new broom sweeps clean. The dust rose in clouds, in less than five minutes he produced a miniature dust-storm.
Through the haze he could see a woman approaching: “Santa Madonna!” she was saying. “Santa Madonna! Do not use so much force. Have we imported a Samson?” He paused with the brush firmly gripped in his hand and, still kneeling, stared up into her face. Then he sneezed and she sneezed; after that he stood up.
“The floor is very dirty,” he told her.
The Padrona laughed softly. “Do I not know as much? Naturally the floor is very dirty.” And then, speaking in Italian: “But you must brush gently. One flicks with the brush to make the top clean; one does not disinter all the filth of a year—see, like this, I will show you, like this—”
And together they both went down on their knees.
The Padrona smelt nice when she came close to you. Gian-Luca could smell her through the
