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 She clung to his arms, distracted and weeping. After a little the child came to weakly. His head lolled from one shoulder to the other.

They went into the stony, street-level office of the hotel. Behind the desk, a black, big, fat Italian, with yellow whites to his eyes, a great expanse of dirty shirtfront, and stocky fingers yellowed with cigarettes, and finished as to the nails with new moons the color of ebony, grunted with the first squall of an important rage when he saw her, and wriggled ingratiatingly, like a newly caught eel, when he realized that she was cavaliered by so large a man as Beauling.

"Excellence will understand—excellence always does," he said rapidly. "I saw at once the child would die. The law so bitter to the innkeeper in whose house occurs a death! He is dead—no? The consumption—"

"I want two rooms on the water side for this lady," said Beauling. "First, you will get the best doctor—no, the best three doctors in Brindisi."