Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

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AflLITAKY LIFE.
sous a box and are as large as tapers ;
he would allow his
candle to burn all night ; gave ten sous as pour-boire for a
glass of beer ;
and threw two francs out of the window, with the
gesture of an annoyed prince, in order to stop a violin-player
who made him nervous. Dear Cavagnetti
! He squandered
half of his pay in these "expenses for representation." And
he said so quite ingenuously: "You understand; one must
maintain a certain amount of dignity."
And to maintain his
own dignity he played like a madman at cards, billiards, chess,
dominoes, mora, lotta, with any one who came along, at any
hour, and upon every occasion, until he had not a copper left ;
then he would light his cigar with an entire box, and on returning
home say quite seriously that he intended to hang
"
himself with his sash, which really meant : Lend me twenty
francs." And he had a curious fancy (developed one hardly
knows how) that made us laugh most heartily.
He had seized
upon a word, which he continually repeated, quite involuntarily,
giving a new signification to it each day the wt>rd was
; cyclop.
In speaking of the colonel he would " say
: The cyclop
was in bad humor this morning." He would call the orderly
:
" " Ho, there, cyclop
! A fourth bottle appeared on the table :
" Oh, a fourth cyclop ! " and always quite seriously. We asked
him the meaning of the word. " How do I know " ? he would
"
reply ; it comes quite naturally to me. I like it.
Every one
has his own particular taste." And he would puff his cigar
cyclop
with intense enjoyment.
After dinner our pianist
the
generally performed, and we had a
little ball, each one imitating the mode of dancing
of his
own how shall I say it ? a Frenchman might say inclination
(it
is strange, but the opposite word would be more gal-