“My dear sir,” said the old gentleman, catching me by the lapel of my
coat and blowing most disagreeably in my face, “I want to apologise.”
He looked around him, as though afraid that even here he might be
overheard. “I want to apologise,” he went on, “about that wretched
pump business. I assure you that, if it had been only my affair, I’d
have put the thing right as soon as you asked. You were quite right: a
bathroom is an implicit guarantee of bath water. I saw from the first
that we should have no chance if it came to court. And besides, I think
one ought to treat one’s tenants as handsomely as one can afford to.
But my wife”--he lowered his voice--“the fact is that she likes this
sort of thing, even when she knows that she’s in the wrong and must
lose. And besides, she hoped, I dare say, that you’d get tired of
asking and have the job done yourself. I told her from the first that
we ought to give in; but she wouldn’t listen. You see, she enjoys it.
Still, now she sees that it must be done. In the course of the next
two or three days you’ll be having your bath water. But I thought I’d
just like to tell you how....” But the Maremmano, which had recovered
by this time from its surprise of a moment since, suddenly bounded,
growling, up the road. The old gentleman tried to hold the beast,
strained at the leash, tottered unsteadily, then gave way and allowed
himself to be dragged off. “... how sorry I am,” he went on, as he
receded from me, “that this little misunderstanding....” But it was no
use. “Good-bye.” He smiled politely, made a little deprecating gesture,
as though he had suddenly remembered a pressing engagement, and had
no time to explain what it was. “Good-bye.” He took off his hat and
abandoned himself completely to the dog.
A week later the water really did begin to flow, and the day after our
first bath Signora Bondi, dressed in dove-grey satin and wearing all
her pearls, came to call.
“Is it peace now?” she asked, with a charming frankness, as she shook
hands.
We assured her that, so far as we were concerned, it certainly was.
“But why _did_ you write me such dreadfully rude letters?” she said,
turning on me a reproachful glance that ought to have moved the most
ruthless malefactor to contrition. “And then that writ. How _could_
you? To a lady....”