Whilst speaking Boccanera's face had clouded over, and it was with
increased sternness of manner that he again waited. He was aware that the
priest had become Sanguinetti's "client" since the latter had been in the
habit of spending weeks together at his suburban see of Frascati. Walking
in the shadow of every cardinal who is a candidate to the papacy, there
are familiars of low degree who stake the ambition of their life on the
possibility of that cardinal's election. If he becomes Pope some day, if
they themselves help him to the throne, they enter the great pontifical
family in his train. It was related that Sanguinetti had once already
extricated Santobono from a nasty difficulty: the priest having one day
caught a marauding urchin in the act of climbing his wall, had beaten the
little fellow with such severity that he had ultimately died of it.
However, to Santobono's credit it must be added that his fanatical
devotion to the Cardinal was largely based upon the hope that he would
prove the Pope whom men awaited, the Pope who would make Italy the
sovereign nation of the world.

"Well, this is my misfortune," he said. "Your Eminence knows my brother
Agostino, who was gardener at the villa for two years in your Eminence's
time. He is certainly a very pleasant and gentle young fellow, of whom
nobody has ever complained. And so it is hard to understand how such an
accident can have happened to him, but it seems that he has killed a man
with a knife at Genzano, while walking in the street in the evening. I am
dreadfully distressed about it, and would willingly give two fingers of
my right hand to extricate him from prison. However, it occurred to me
that your Eminence would not refuse me a certificate stating that
Agostino was formerly in your Eminence's service, and that your Eminence
was always well pleased with his quiet disposition."

But the Cardinal flatly protested: "I was not at all pleased with
Agostino. He was wildly violent, and I had to dismiss him precisely
because he was always quarrelling with the other servants."

"Oh! how grieved I am to hear your Eminence say that! So it is true,
then, my poor little Agostino's disposition has really changed! Still
there is always a way out of a difficulty, is there not? You can still
give me a certificate, first arranging the wording of it. A certificate
from your Eminence would have such a favourable effect upon the law
officers."

"No doubt," replied Boccanera