“Quietly, _per Dio_! Last night I was at the Café Greco when Z., who writes the articles signed Piff Paff, was there. Tale came in and said to him: ‘So it is you who please yourself in writing lies about me?’ This one took a chair, that one a bench--pim poom! Mirrors were smashed, bottles broken, a farce--piggery--_me spiego_?” “The elections should have been put off,” said the small _avvocato_. “We in Sicily have enough at this moment without that business; but no, the politicians care more about keeping their men in than about their distracted country, desolated, ruined by the most consummate disaster the world has seen!” Grudgingly Teodoro’s father agreed; he would have preferred to disagree. A man of intelligence, feeling, sentiment, not a man of power. He had a low forehead, dark, angry eyes, a swart color that showed Saracen descent. All his good qualities--I am sure there were many--were nullified by his volcanic temper, that without rhyme or reason burst forth, devastating the hour as an eruption of Etna blasts the lovely vineyards and olive groves, and turns them into burnt lands that produce nothing. In the silence that followed, Teodoro’s gay lilting voice was heard imparting advice to Patsy. “For Palermitan dishes? Go to the Ristorante Trinacria, order _pasta con sarde_, _baccalà à ghiotto_, _melone d’inverno_, _zibibbi_, a _fiasco_ of Vino di Zucco--Ah, behold us arrived at Termini--here is made the best _pasta_ (macaroni) in Sicilia.” At Trabia the little _avvocato_ hopped briskly off the train and returned carefully carrying his bandana handkerchief filled with eggs. “They cost a horror at Palermo; my wife always asks me this favor,” he explained, as he stowed away three dozen eggs in his lawyer’s bag.