"But it must be a fine
satisfaction to know that you can drown them all, like rats in a
hole."
"Yes," said Toto, "it is a fine satisfaction."
"And even to know that you can make the water come before they begin,
so that they can never do anything without you."
"That too," assented the mason.
"They would pay you a great deal to help them, if they could not pump
the water out. There is no one else in Rome who knows how to turn it
off."
Gigi made the remark tentatively, but Toto did not answer.
"You will need some one to help you," suggested the carpenter in an
insinuating tone.
"I can do it alone."
"It is somewhere in the cellars of number thirteen, is it not?" asked
Gigi.
He would have given all he had to know what Toto knew, and the bargain
would have been a very profitable one, no doubt. But though the mason
was his closest friend there were secrets of the trade which Toto
would not reveal to him.
"The numbers in the street were all changed ten years ago," Toto
answered.
He rose from his seat by the grimy table, and Gigi followed his
example with a sigh of disappointment. They were moderate men, and
hardly ever drank more than their litre of their wine. Toto smelt of
mortar and his fustian clothes and hairy arms were generally splashed
with it. Gigi smelt of glue and sawdust, and there were plentiful
marks of his calling on his shiny old cloth trousers and his coarse
linen shirt.
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