If anything could have been more insultingly inadequate to the situation than that one word _scusi_, it did not at the moment occur to him.

Jeering, blasphemy, vituperation, he might have excused, but this! The shock jostled him back to a thinking state.
Here was no ordinary donkey-driver.

The hand that had rested for a moment on his arm was the hand of a gentleman.

The man's face was vaguely, elusively familiar; if the lieutenant had not seen him before, he had at least seen his picture.

The man had pretended he could not talk Italian, but--_scusi_--it came out very pat when it was needed.
An idea suddenly assailed Lieutenant di Ferara.