Farrell began with two
jocose remarks which didn't quite hit the mark he intended them for.
'Hallo, Jovanny!' he said pretty loudly, 'I don't seem to remember
your face, and yet it's familiar somehow.'--Whereat Giovanni, or
whatever his name was, flung a look over his shoulder that was equal
to an alarm, and all the anarchists looked up uneasily too--for
Farrell's voice carries, as you may have observed. He followed this
up by smiling at me over the _carte du jour_ and observing in a
jovial stentorian voice that he felt like a man returned from exile.
Fifteen years--and it must be fifteen years--is a long stretch. . . .
'Oh, damn your Italian,' said Farrell suddenly, dropping the card.
'In the old days we used to make orders on our fingers, in the dumb
alphabet, and risk what came.'
"By this time he had Giovanni, and several anarchists at the nearer
tables, properly scared. But he picked up the card and went on,
innocent as a judge,' We used to have a code in those days.
For instance, you crooked one finger over your nose and that meant
'sea-urchins.
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