Then, suddenly, these two
men in white caps came in, and they arrested me with as much ease as
you or I would hold a horse.
A moment later there came in two magnificent fellows, gendarmes, with
swords and cocked hats, and moustaches _a l'Abd el Kader,_ as we used
to say in the old days; these four, the two gendarmes and two
policemen, sat down opposite me on chairs and began cross-questioning
me in Italian, a language in which I was not proficient. I so far
understood them as to know that they were asking for my papers.
'Niente!' said I, and poured out on the table a card-case, a
sketch-book, two pencils, a bottle of wine, a cup, a piece of bread, a
scrap of French newspaper, an old _Secolo,_ a needle, some thread, and
a flute - but no passport.
They looked in the card-case and found 73 lira; that is, not quite
three pounds. They examined the sketch-book critically, as behoved
southerners who are mostly of an artistic bent: but they found no
passport. They questioned me again, and as I picked about for words to
reply, the smaller (the policeman, a man with a face like a fox)
shouted that he had heard me speaking Italian _currently_ in the inn,
and that my hesitation was a blind.
