d 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 ruens tumultu."

The sage--shrinking deeper into his arm-chair, 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 process; 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 1500 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 mark made by the book on the wall of his prison in
Germany,) besides running off with a nun, which no Protestant clergyman
would think it proper and right to do now-a-days." Then he added, with
seriousness, "Look you, my dear sir,--I should lose my own esteem if I
were even to listen to