In half an hour the warrant was in the hands of the officer, who
immediately called out half-a-dozen of his men and marched them down to
the glass-house.
Giovanni saw them stop and knock at the door, and he heard Pasquale's
gruff inquiry.
"In the Governor's name, open at once!" said the officer.
"Any one can say that," answered the porter. "In the devil's name go
home and go to bed! Is this carnival time, to go masquerading by the
light of the moon and waking up honest people?"
"Silence!" roared the lieutenant. "Open the door, or it will be the
worse for you."
"It will be the worse for you, if the Signor Giovanni hears this
disturbance," answered Pasquale, who could see Giovanni at the window
opposite in the moonlight. "Either get orders from him, or go home and
leave me in holy peace, you band of braying jackasses, you mob of
blobber-lipped Barbary apes, you pack of doltish, droiling, doddered
joltheads! Be off!"
This eloquence, combined with Pasquale's assured manner, caused the
lieutenant to hesitate before breaking down the door, an operation for
which he had not been prepared, and for which he had brought no engines
of battery.
"Can you get in?" he inquired of his men, without deigning to answer the
porter's invectives.
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