CHAPTER VIII
THE TEMPTATION OF SIR MONTAGUE MERLINE
IL SIGNOR LUIGI RIVOLI strode forth from the Canteen in an unpleasant frame of mind.
"Curse the Englishman!" he growled. "Curse that hag behind the bar. Curse that Russian ragazza. Curse that thrice-damned American.…"
In fact—curse everybody and everything. And among them, Il Signor Luigi Rivoli cursed Carmelita for not making a bigger financial success of her Café venture, and saving a Neapolitan gentlemen from the undignified and humiliating position of having to lay siege to a cursed fat French bitche, to get a decent living…. What a fool he'd been that evening! He had lost ground badly with Madame, and he had lost prestige badly with the Legionaries. He must regain both as quickly as possible. … That accursed English devil must meet with an accident within the week. It would not be the first time by hundreds that a Légionnaire had been stabbed in the back for his sash and bayonet in the Village Négre and alleys of the Ghetto. … A little job for Edouard Malvin, or Tou-tou Boil-the-Cat. Yes, a knife in the back would settle the Englishman's hash quite effectually, and it would be the simplest thing in the world to leave his body in one of those places to which Legionaries are forbidden to go—for the very reason that
211
