'
"We fellows, I tell you, took charge of Diffendorfer after that, and a
ripping good fellow he was. We got that high collar off of him, a slouch
hat on his head instead of his stove-pipe, and a pipe in his mouth, and
before the winter was over he had more friends than any fellow in
Venice. It was only awkwardness that made him talk so queer and ugly.
And maybe we didn't have some good times in those rooms of his on
the Zattere!"
Marny stopped, threw away the end of his cigar, laid a coin under his
plate for the waiter and another on top of it for Henri, the chef,
reached for his hat, and said, as he rose from his seat, and flecked
the ashes from his coat-sleeve:
"So now, whenever I see a poor devil haunting a place like this, looking
around out of the corner of his eye, hoping somebody will speak to him,
I say that's a Diffendorfer, and more than half the time I'm right."
MUFFLES--THE BAR-KEEP
My friend Muffles has had a varied career. Muffles is not his baptismal
name--if he were ever baptized, which I doubt.
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