The Matchmaker Read Online Free PDF

you. Here’s the water,” and he pulled out an orangeade bottle from the rolled bundle of his coat.
    Presently, when the smoke was going straight up into the still air, while the flames darted below it and the water in the petrol can was beginning to steam, Emilio broke the long silence by saying:
    “Anyway, I did it to get cigarettes for you too,” and dropping his arm for an instant over his friend’s shoulders.
    “All right, all right!” mocked Fabrio, shaking the arm off, but after a moment he began to sing.
    “What’s that?” asked Emilio lazily, lying back amidst the skeleton leaves and the bronze fern with arms behind his head.
    “The fishermen sing it at San Angelo.” Fabrio broke off to say this, then resumed, sitting by the fire with arms linked round his knees and head thrown back. His voice was a tenor; no phenomenon, but behind it, lightly and easily floating the words out through his throat and into the air, was the desire to sing that makes a bird sing and—in spite of his captivity and the consequent martyrdom of all his young instincts—the bird’s joy in living.
    “Ah, that old stuff! That’s dead. You want to sing——” and he burst into Giovinezza , but after a few bars stopped again and shook his head, muttering, “I never did like that much, I like this better,” and he swung into a tuneful little song consisting of an American scaffolding and an Italian façade recently broadcast from Rome and exactly like all the other tuneful little songs with American scaffoldings and German, French or English façades recently broadcast from Berlin, Paris and London.
    “That’s good, too,” and Fabrio joined in joyfully and the rabbit in the petrol can began to bubble. It was now nearly two hours since Fabrio Caetano and Emilio Rossi, of ITALY , had done any work.
    Mr. Hoadley, a giant of a man, coming down through the fern in the direction of the singing with a hound-puppy, which he was “walking,” at his heels, did not know exactly how long this had been going on but he did know when a fire had been burning for some time and the fire was the first thing he looked at. A cavern of red heat and frail oak-ashes had gathered beneath the penthouse of charred logs.
    He walked so swiftly down the slope that he was on them before they knew it, and they had only time to scramble up before, with a vigorous thrust of his stout stick, he had sent the petrol tin sideways into the fire. There was a hissing, and a cloud of rabbit-steam and wood smoke rolled out as the broth poured over the logs and dripped down to sink into the ground. The hound-puppy, who had been eagerly advancing towards the smell, yelped and leapt back from the boiling steam with tail between his legs.
    “You pair of lazy bastards,” said Mr. Hoadley, scattering the fire with his boot. “Get on, I don’t want to hear anything about it, I’m sick of the two of you,” and whistling to the dog he turned and marched away, with his cap pulled over his eyes and his usually good-natured lower lip thrust out. He had, when he thought about such matters at all, a low opinion of every race except the English, and since his employment of Italian prisoners his opinion had sunk lower still.
    Emilio had made a hasty movement towards his abandoned spade and mattock as the farmer loomed over them, but Fabrio had stood his ground, and now thrust his trembling hands into his pockets and stared down at what was to have been their feast; the blackened, steaming wood, the joints of rabbit, cooked to a turn and looking very pink amongst ashes and brown leaves, and the moisture, the delicious broth, dripping from the overturned can. He swore, and his blue eyes glittered.
    “Ah, come on—it’s still good to eat!” cried Emilio impudently, down on his knees in the moist ground and rubbing a rabbit-leg clean against his sleeve. There was a scurry at his side and the beautiful head of the hound-puppy suddenly appeared under his arm, with such mingled