"I have studied war."

"In books."

"With brains, Colonel Corte."

"War is a matter of blows, my little lad."

"Let me inform you, signor Colonel, that war is not a game between
bulls, to be played with the horns of the head."

"You are prepared to instruct me?" The fiery Bergamasc lifted his
eyebrows.

"Nay, nay!" said Agostino. "Between us two first;" and he grasped
Carlo's arm, saying in an underbreath, "Your last retort was too
long-winded. In these conflicts you must be quick, sharp as a
rifle-crack that hits echo on the breast-bone and makes her cry out.
I correct a student in the art of war." Then aloud: "My opera, young
man!--well, it's my libretto, and you know we writers always say 'my
opera' when we have put the pegs for the voice; you are certainly aware
that we do. How dare you to make calumnious observations upon my opera?
Is it not the ripe and admirable fruit of five years of confinement? Are
not the lines sharp, the stanzas solid? and the stuff, is it not good?
Is not the subject simple, pure from offence to sensitive authority,
constitutionally harmless? Reply!"

"It's transparent to any but asses," said Carlo.

"But if it has passed the censorship? You are guilty, my boy, of
bestowing upon those highly disciplined gentlemen who govern your famous
city--what title? I trust a prophetic one, since that it comes from an
animal whose custom is to turn its back before it delivers a blow,
and is, they remark, fonder of encountering dead lions than live ones.
Still, it is you who are indiscreet,--eminently so, I must add, if you
will look lofty. If my opera has passed the censorship! eh, what have
you to say?"

Carlo endured this banter till the end of it came.

"And you--you encourage her!" he cried wrathfully. "You know what the
danger is for her, if they once lay hands on her. They will have her
in Verona in four-and-twenty hours; through the gates of the Adige in a
couple of days, and at Spielberg, or some other of their infernal dens
of groans, within a week. Where is the chance of a rescue then? They
torture, too, they torture! It's a woman; and insult will be one mode of
torturing her. They can use rods--"

The excited Southern youth was about to cover his face, but caught back
his hands, clenching them.

"All this," said Agostino, "is an evasion, manifestly, of the question
concerning my opera, on which you have thought proper to cast a slur.
The phrase, 'transparent to any but ass