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Updated: May 31, 2025
With the utmost determination he held himself to his task, not willing to believe that his judgment and nerve could be so disturbed as to render him unfit for any serious business. But the result was contemptible as compared with the effort. Andrea Contini, too, was inclined to take a gloomy view of things, contrary to his usual habit.
"Business is business," he said to himself, "and people who introduce personal considerations into a financial transaction will get the worst of the bargain." Andrea Contini was apparently of the same opinion, for when he entered the room again at the end of an hour his excitement had quite disappeared.
One day Andrea Contini walked into the office after a tour of inspection, with a whole cigar, unlighted and intact, between his teeth. Orsino was well aware from this circumstance that something unusually fortunate had happened or was about to happen, and he rose from his books, as soon as he recognised the fair-weather signal.
You intend to impose another and probably a larger piece of work on me, which I shall be obliged to undertake on the same terms as before, because if I do not accept it, it is in your power to ruin me at once. And this state of things may go on for years. That is the enviable position of Andrea Contini and Company." Del Ferice assumed an air of injured dignity.
Andrea Contini, considering his social relations, might be on terms of friendship with his hatter, for instance, or might have personal reasons for disliking him. In neither case could the buying of a hat from that individual be looked upon as an obligation conferred or received by either party. This was quite clear, and Orsino was satisfied.
I suppose we must have an office. It is necessary, is it not?" "Indispensable a room, a garret anything. A habitation, a legal domicile, so to say." "Where do you live, Signor Contini? Would not your lodging do?" "I am afraid not, Signor Principe. At least not for the present. I am not very well lodged and the stairs are badly lighted."
But as Andrea Contini and Company he was another person, and so Del Ferice was not Count Del Ferice, nor the Onorevole Del Ferice, but simply a director in a bank with which he had business.
"Perhaps we had better go and look at the house, Signor Principe," observed Contini, in the midst of an ineffectual effort to light the stump of his cigar. "I think so, too," answered Orsino, realising that since he had acquired the property it would be as well to know how it looked.
Not even the yells of the newsboys affected him, as they announced the failure of the great contractor Ronco and offered, in a second edition, a complete account of the bankruptcy. It struck him indeed that before long the same brazen voices might be screaming out the news that Andrea Contini and Company had come to grief.
Things looked very black indeed, and Del Ferice's bank had refused to discount any more of Prince Montevarchi's paper. "And we must have money to-day," Contini concluded. When he had finished speaking his excitement disappeared and he relapsed into the utmost dejection. Orsino remained silent for some time and then lit a cigarette. "You need not be so down-hearted, Contini," he said at last.
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