s in the
_Osservatore Romano_ of this evening."

"He is good for nothing else," growled Marzio. "It is just like him not
to have told me anything about it."

"With the sympathy which exists between you, I am surprised," said the
journalist. "After all, you might convert him, and then he would be
useful. He will be an archdeacon next, and then a bishop--who
knows?--perhaps a cardinal!"

"You might as well talk of converting the horses on Monte Cavallo as of
making Paolo change his mind," replied Pandolfi, beginning to sip the
white wine he had ordered. "You don't know him--he is an angel, my
brother! Oh, quite an angel! I wish somebody would send him to heaven,
where he is so anxious to be!"

"Look out, Marzio!" exclaimed the lawyer, glancing from the vinegar
cruet towards the door and then at his friend.

"No such luck," returned the chiseller. "Nothing ever happens to those
black-birds. When we get as far as hanging them, my dear brother will
happen to be in Paris instead of in Rome. You might as well try to catch
a street cat by calling to it _micio, micio_! as try and catch a priest.
You may as well expect to kill a mule by kicking it as one of those
animals, Burn the Vatican over their heads and think you have destroyed
them like a wasps' nest, they will write you a letter from Berlin the
next day saying that they are alive and well, and that Prince Bismarck
protests against your proceedings."

"Bravo, Sor Marzio!" cried the journalist. "I will put that in the paper
to-morrow--it is a fine fulmination. You always refresh my ideas--why
will you not write an article for us in that strain? I will publish it
as coming from a priest who has given up his orders, married, and opened
a wine-shop in Naples. What an effect! Magnificent! Do go on!"

Marzio did not need a second invitation to proceed upon his favourite
topic. He was soon launched, and as the little room filled, his pale and
sunken cheeks grew red with excitement, his tongue was unloosed, and he
poured out a continuous stream of blasphemous ribaldry such as would
have shocked the ears of a revolutionist of the year '89 or of a
_petroleuse_ of the nineteenth century. It seemed as though the spring
once opened would never dry. His eyes flashed, his fingers writhed
convulsively on the table, and his voice rang out, ironical and cutting,
with strange intonations that roused strange feelings in his hearers. It
was the old subject, but he found something new t