A low growl caused her to look up apprehensively. Tony himself
stood beetle-browed and huge in the small doorway.
"Get up from there," he muttered, "and open two dozen oysters
right away; the Eliots want 'em." His English was unaccented.
It was long since he had seen Italy.
She moved meekly behind the counter, and began work on the thick
shells. Tony stretched his long neck up the street.
"Mr. Tony, mama wants some charcoal." The very small voice at
his feet must have pleased him, for his black brows relaxed into
a smile, and he poked the little one's chin with a hard, dirty
finger, as he emptied the ridiculously small bucket of charcoal
into the child's bucket, and gave a banana for lagniappe.
The crackling of shells went on behind, and a stifled sob arose
as a bit of sharp edge cut into the thin, worn fingers that
clasped the knife.
"Hurry up there, will you?" growled the black brows; "the Eliots
are sending for the oysters."
She deftly strained and counted them, and, after wiping her
fingers, resumed her seat, and took up the endless crochet work,
with her usual stifled sigh.
Tony and his wife had always been in this same little queer old
shop on Prytania Street, at least to the memory of the oldest
inhabitant in the neighbourhood. When or how they came, or how
they stayed, no one knew; it was enough that they were there,
like a sort of ancestral fixture to the street.
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