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In order to expedite the work of composition it was provided in the contract that Rossini was to take lodgings with a singer named Zamboni, to whom the honor fell of being the original of the town factotum in Rossini's opera. Some say that Rossini completed the score in thirteen days; some in fifteen.
Zamboni, to answer the door in case any of the hotel people or the detectives should come. Hal asked Jim Moylan to see Edward, and say that Hal was writing a manifesto to the North Valley workers, and would not be ready to leave until the midnight train.
The men underground were setting off dynamite by way of signalling! In the course of the second day Hal sat with Mary Burke upon the steps of her home. Old Patrick lay within, having found the secret of oblivion at O'Callahan's. Now and then came the moaning of Mrs. Zamboni, who was in her cabin with her brood of children.
It proved surprisingly difficult to separate Mrs. Zamboni from her widow's weeds, which she had purchased with so great an expenditure of time and tears. Never had a respectable lady who had borne sixteen children received such a proposition; to sell the insignia of her grief and here in a hotel room, crowded with a dozen men! Nor was the task made easier by the unseemly merriment of the men. "Ai!
Born in the year 1485, her "fortunate parents," as Zamboni calls them, gave her a most careful and thorough education, and as a young woman she was noted for her poetic gifts, which were of a high order.
Meanwhile there is much bargaining between Buchels and Zamboni; but it is certain, from the correspondence in the Bodleian library, that Zamboni never paid for the MSS. which he sold to Lord Oxford in anything but promises. The bills which he gave were never met, and if the elector was the loser, his librarian cannot be said to have profited by the fraud which he undoubtedly committed.
These things agreed upon, Hal shook hands all round, and the eleven men left the room at once, going down stairs and through the lobby, scattering in every direction on the streets. Mrs. Swajka and the pseudo-Mrs. Zamboni followed a minute later and, as they anticipated, found the lobby swept clear of detectives. Bidding Mrs. Swajka farewell, Hal set out for the railroad station.
Jesu!" cried Mrs. Zamboni again. "Tell her it's very, very important," said Hal. "Tell her I must have them." And then, seeing that Rusick was making poor headway, he joined in, in the compromise-English one learns in the camps. "Got to have! Sure thing! Got to hide! Quick! Get away from boss! See? Get killed if no go!" So at last the frightened old woman gave way.
Zamboni, pouring out a sputtering torrent. "She say she don't got nothing to put on. She say it ain't good to go no clothes!" "Hasn't she got on a petticoat?" "She say petticoat got holes!" There was a burst of laughter from the company, and the old woman turned scarlet from her forehead to her ample throat. "Tell her she wrap up in blankets," said Hal. "Mary Burke buy her new things."
His reason protested against it; he told himself there was nothing they could do, no reason on earth for them to stay and yet he hated them. They were hurrying off to dance and flirt at the country club while he was going back to the pit-mouth, to try to get Mrs. Zamboni the right to inspect the pieces of her "man"! The pit of death was giving up its secrets.
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