fair may not prove as disagreeable as you
think! Sit down and listen."

But Franco would not hear of resuming his seat.

"Out with it, then!" said he, his voice ringing impatiently.

"First of all your grandmother is prepared to recognise your
marriage----"

"How kind!" Franco put in.

"Wait!----and to make you a suitable allowance: from what I heard I
should think of from six to eight thousand _svanziche_ a year. Not bad,
eh?"

"Go on."

"Be patient! There is nothing humiliating in all this. Had there been a
single humiliating condition I should not have mentioned the matter to
you. Your grandmother wishes you to have an occupation, and also desires
that you give a certain guarantee not to take part in political doings.
Now there is a decorous way of combining these two points, as you
yourself will be obliged to recognise, although I tell you plainly that
I had proposed a different course to your grandmother. My idea was that
she should place you at the head of her affairs. You would have had
enough to do to keep you from thinking of anything else. However, your
grandmother's idea is good also. I know fine young fellows like
yourself, who think as you do, and who are in the judicial service. It
is a most independent and respectable calling. A word from you and you
will find yourself an auditor of the court."

"I?" Franco burst out. "I? No, my dear Pasotti! No! They don't send the
police into my house--be quiet!--they don't brutally dismiss from
service an honest man, whose only crime is that he is my wife's
uncle,--be quiet, I tell you!--they don't seek every possible means of
reducing my family and myself to the verge of starvation to-day, that
they may offer us filthy bread to-morrow! No, my man, no! Do your worst!
By God! I am not to be trapped by any one through hunger! Tell my
grandmother so, you----you----you----"

Pasotti's nature certainly had much that was feline; he was rapacious,
cunning, prudent, a flatterer, quick to feign, but also subject to fits
of rage. He had continued to interrupt Maironi's outpouring with
protests which became ever more violent, and at this last invective,
forseeing the approach of a deluge of accusations which were all the
more exasperating because he could guess their character, he also
started to his feet.

"Stop!" said he. "What do you mean by all this?"

"Good-night!" cried Franco, who had seized his hat. But Pasotti had no
intention of letting him go thus. "One