_Senta caro!_ In the morning at seven. He had called the young gentleman _caro_ several times and nothing had happened. It was good marsala. His eyes glistened. Days like this stretched out ahead. It would begin again at seven in the morning.
They started to walk up the hill toward the town. The y. g. went on ahead. He was quite a way up the hill. Peduzzi called to him.
Listen _caro_ can you let me take five lira for a favour?
For today? asked the young gentleman frowning.
No, not today. Give it to me today for tomorrow. I will provide everything for tomorrow. _Pane, salami, formaggio,_ good stuff for all of us. You and I and the signora. Bait for fishing, minnows, not worms only. Perhaps I can get some marsala. All for five lira. Five lira for a favour.
The young gentleman looked through his pocket book and took out a two lira note and two ones.
Thank you _caro_. Thank you, said Peduzzi in the tone of one member of the Carleton Club accepting the Morning Post from another. This was living. He was through with the hotel garden, breaking up frozen manure with a dung fork. Life was opening out.
Until seven o’clock then _caro,_ he said, slapping the y. g. on the back. Promptly at seven.
I may not be going, said the young gentleman putting his purse back in his pocket.
What, said Peduzzi. I will have minnows Signor. _Salami,_ everything. You and I and the Signora. The three of us.
I may not be going, said the y. g., very probably not. I will leave word with the padrone at the hotel office.
I guess looking at it now my old man was cut out for a fat guy, one of those regular little roly fat guys you see around, but he sure never got that way, except a little toward the last, and then it wasn’t his fault, he was riding over the jumps only and he could afford to carry plenty of weight then. I remember the way he’d pull on a rubber shirt over a couple of jerseys and a big sweat shirt over that and get me to run with him in the forenoon in the hot sun. He’d have maybe taken a trial trip with one of Razzo’s skins early in the morning after just getting in from Torino at four o’clock in the morning and beating it out to the stables in a cab and then with the dew all over everything and the sun just starting to get going I’d help him pull off his boots and he’d get into a pair of sneakers and all these sweaters and we’d start out.