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lady owner of the dogs had left Florence (so many people are leaving for safety) whereupon the man answered that his wife was ill and for that reason he was out with the dogs. I then noticed that under the old waterproof was a well made silk shirt and that he was conversing in very good French indeed. He had already made a confident of Natalie and was telling her of the eight "sfollati" (refugees) that were about to be imposed on him. His villa, the most important on Via S. Leonardo, could not be divided, he said, and he and his family assembled in the only room that contained a stove, while the bath-rooms were without hot water. He was very excited about this dividing up of his house, and kept wiping away a persistent drop on the end of his long nose with a piece of paper, a very rough piece that rustled each time he pulled it out of his waistcoat pocket. He turned to me for advice and I gave it by way of suggesting that he should lay the affair before the German authorities - "They are said to be very obliging," I said. To this he showed no enthusiasm and answered that perhaps they were polite and obliging as individuals but were certainly not so as a whole. Then, following Natalie's example, I shook hands with him. Once out of ear-shot, Natalie who always knows about everyone told me that he was a very rich Austrian Jew married to an Italian and had recently bought Villa No..... "But why did he want to speak to me, and why did you mistake him for a servant?" "A gardener," I corrected, "no servant would ever wear such a camouflaged linen hat." I then warned