The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet by James Fenimore Cooper
page 68 of 572 (11%)
page 68 of 572 (11%)
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consciousness that it had been the channel of a most agreeable
communication to the stomach. Sooth to say, Benedetta had brought up a flask at a paul, or at about four cents a bottle; a flask of the very quality which she had put before the vice-governatore; and this was a liquor that flowed so smoothly over the palate, and of a quality so really delicate, that Ithuel was by no means aware of the potency of the guest which he had admitted to his interior. All this time the vice-governatore was making up his mind concerning the nation and character of the stranger. That he should mistake Bolt for an Englishman was natural enough, and the fact had an influence in again unsettling his opinion as to the real flag under which the lugger sailed, Like most Italians of that day, he regarded all the families of the northern hordes as a species of barbarians--an opinion that the air and deportment of Ithuel had no direct agency in changing; for, while this singular being was not brawlingly rude and vulgar, like the coarser set of his own countrymen, with whom he had occasionally been brought in contact, he was so manifestly uncivilized in many material points, as to put his claim to gentility much beyond a cavil, and that in a negative way. "You are a Genoese?" said Andrea to Filippo, speaking with the authority of one who had a right to question. "Signore, I am, at your eccellenza's orders, though in foreign service at this present moment." "In what service, friend? I am in authority, here in Elba, and ask no more than is my duty." |
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