t
then occurred to him was the proper and professional one,--namely, the
conversion of Dr. Riccabocca. He hastened to his study, took down from
his shelves long neglected volumes of controversial divinity, armed
himself with an arsenal of authorities, arguments, and texts; then,
seizing the shovel-hat, posted off to the Casino.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The parson burst upon the philosopher like an avalanche! He was so full
of his subject that he could not let it out in prudent driblets. No, he
went souse upon the astounded Riccabocca--

"Tremendo
Jupiter ipse rueus tumultu."

The sage--shrinking deeper into his armchair, and drawing his
dressing-robe more closely round him--suffered the parson to talk for
three quarters of an hour, till indeed he had thoroughly proved his
case; and, like Brutus, "paused for a reply."

Then said Riccabocca mildly: "In much of what you have urged so ably,
and so suddenly, I am inclined to agree. But base is the man who
formally forswears the creed he has inherited from his fathers, and
professed since the cradle up to years of maturity, when the change
presents itself in the guise of a bribe; when, for such is human nature,
he can hardly distinguish or disentangle the appeal to his reason
from the lure to his interests,--here a text, and there a dowry!--here
Protestantism, there Jemima! Own, my friend, that the soberest casuist
would see double under the inebriating effects produced by so mixing
his polemical liquors. Appeal, my good Mr. Dale, from Philip drunken to
Philip sober!--from Riccabocca intoxicated with the assurance of
your excellent lady, that he is about to be 'the happiest of men,' to
Riccabocca accustomed to his happiness, and carrying it off with the
seasoned equability of one grown familiar with stimulants,--in a word,
appeal from Riccabocca the wooer to Riccabocca the spouse. I may be
convertible, but conversion is a slow progress; courtship should be a
quick one,--ask Miss Jemima. Finalmente, marry me first, and convert me
afterwards!"

"You take this too jestingly," began the parson; "and I don't see why,
with your excellent understanding, truths so plain and obvious should
not strike you at once."

"Truths," interrupted Riccabocca, profoundly, "are the slowest growing
things in the world! It took fifteen hundred years from the date of the
Christian era to produce your own Luther, and then he flung his Bible at
Satan (I have seen the