Thus a considerable number of people in Rieka were anxious that the town should not come under any Government which might punish the culprits or make them disgorge. And Nitti and d'Annunzio agreed with these interested parties in opposing a solution other than the overlordship of Italy. "The Yugoslavs should understand," said the amiable Premier, "that Italy has no intention of acting in a manner distasteful to them, but is struggling for a national ideal." And meantime what of the conditions in the poor distracted town? "D'Annunzio," says an Italian paper, "is no longer the master of Rieka. He has become the prisoner of his own troops.... While he amuses himself and organizes the worst orgies, his troops quarrel in the streets and discharge their weapons.... A great many of them have their mistresses in the hospital, where they make themselves at home. When the doctors, after some time, protested, the arditi, with bombs in their hands, threatened to blow up the hospital if they were not allowed to enter it." On the other hand the pale, weary-looking poet succeeded in impressing on a special correspondent of the _Morning Post_ that he was "master of his job." He told this gentleman--and was apparently believed--that with the consent and approval of the C.N.I. he had had the whole place mined, city and harbour, and was prepared to blow it up at a moment's notice. The means by which d'Annunzio, according to his interviewer, worked on those who were depressed with gazing at the empty shops, the silent warehouses, the grass-grown wharves, so that the overwhelming majority of the town supported him, was by simply making to them an eloquent speech. D'Annunzio would indeed be the master of his job if with some rounded periods in Italian he could cause the very numerous hostile business men to forget so blissfully that they were men of business. Under his dispensation the town is said to have been turned into a place of debauchery. Accusations were brought against his sexual code, and with regard to men of commerce: "those who are not partisans of d'Annunzio are expelled, and their establishments handed over to friends of the ruling power.... Woe to him who dares to condemn the transactions of the poet's adherents. There and then he is pronounced to be a Yugoslav, is placed under surveillance and is persecuted." These Italian critics of the poet do not in the least exaggerate. One instance of his conduct towards a British firm will be sufficient. The "Anglo-Near East Trading Company" shipped sixty-seven cases (5292 pairs) of boots to private traders in Belgrade, and on the way they reached Rieka just before d'Annunzio. In March 1920 they were still detained there, and on the 13th of that month a certain Alcesde di Ambris, who described himself as the Chief of the Cabinet, wrote a letter saying that the boots were requisitioned, and that they would be paid for within thirty days at a price fixed on March 5 by experts of the local Chamber of Commerce.