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

294 MILITARY LIFE.
sausage. There was no way of getting
out of it. The sufferer
might turn red, yellow, green, or black but he was
;
forced to
laugh. The successful onslaughts provoked revenges, so that
little by little the game became a rage. We had to defend
ourselves like so many dogs. There was no way of dining in
peace. The cutlets, side bones of fowls, eggs, and glasses of
wine disappeared as if
by magic. Some had acquired a fearful
dexterity. They even invented instruments for the purpose.
That devil of a Mazzoni emptied, with one stroke, a cup
of coffee, by thrusting into it with the rapidity of lightning an
enormous piece of bread, so shaped that it acted like a pump ;
and he carried off at one time a half kilo, of maccaroni in
broth, by a certain infernal tool, made with a bunch of toothpicks
in the shape of a funnel ;
or with a bed bar, at the top of
which he had cautiously tied a fork, he would carry a slice of
the fry from one end of
the table, which was two metres and a
half in length. Then came the thefts by con jury, cords,
hooks, wires, and highway robberies. It was something fearful,
desperate, and absolutely ruinous. But Mazzoni always
said " : You have yet to see the monster theft, the greatest one
"
of all ! And we all trembled. Finally, one evening, while we
were disputing with our forks a dish of polenta
with small
birds, Mazzoni uttered an oath, saying that he had dropped his
fork, and stooped to pick it up. ... Ye heavenly powers
!
We had not finished our exclamation, when the table was
already in the next room, carried off on the back of that gigantic
thief, without a single drop of wine having been spilled.
Then came the passion for nocturnal excursions. We went
out at night in old citizen's clothes which we had brought from
home, dyed, faded, and recolored, which were threadbare, and