Flavio studies the red collar and the lamppost knot with the grave concentration of a small person who has untied exactly zero knots in his life but feels extremely confident about this one. Aurora watches the pigeon. The pigeon watches the dog. The dog watches everyone, tail already a blur, bell jingling with pure anticipatory energy. The knot, it turns out, is the loose kind that results from tying a very excitable dog to a lamppost while your hands are occupied with gelato cones. Flavio works at it with the boutonnière — four determined seconds — and it gives. The leash drops. For one heartbeat, nothing happens. Then the harbour dog discovers it is, suddenly, free. What follows is less a chase and more a small golden explosion. The pigeon departs skyward in a great theatrical clap of wings. The dog follows in a wide looping arc, leash trailing, bell ringing wildly, which clips the corner of the kiosk table — which wobbles — which sends a tower of cone sleeves spiralling into the afternoon like extremely festive confetti. The gelato vendor turns around at last, cone mid-scoop, to find two small children in wedding clothes, an empty lamppost, and absolutely no dog in the vicinity of where a dog should be. "...Hallå?" he says.