sk me what for! what service I did him--ask me!

_Monsignor._ I would better not: I should rip up old
disgraces, let out my poor brother's weaknesses. By the 80
way, Maffeo of Forli (which, I forgot to observe, is
your true name), was the interdict ever taken off you,
for robbing that church at Cesena?

_Intendant._ No, nor needs be; for when I murdered
your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him-- 85

_Monsignor._ Ah, he employed you in that business,
did he? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, this villa
and that _podere_, for fear the world should find out my
relations were of so indifferent a stamp? Maffeo, my family
is the oldest in Messina, and century after century 90
have my progenitors gone on polluting themselves with
every wickedness under heaven: my own father--rest his
soul!--I have, I know, a chapel to support that it may
rest; my dear two dead brothers were--what you know
tolerably well; I, the youngest, might have rivaled them 95
in vice, if not in wealth: but from my boyhood I came
out from among them, and so am not partaker of their
plagues. My glory springs from another source; or if
from this, by contrast only--for I, the bishop, am the
brother of your employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some 100
of their wrong, however; so far as my brother's ill-gotten
treasure reverts to me, I can stop the consequences
of his crime--and not one _soldo_ shall escape me. Maffeo,
the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves
pick up and commit murders with; what opportunities 105
the virtuous forego, the villainous seize. Because, to
pleasure myself, apart from other considerations, my
food would be millet-cake, my dress sackcloth, and my
couch straw--am I therefore to let you, the offscouring
of the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant by appropriating 110
a pomp these will be sure to think lessens the abominations
so unaccountably and exclusively associated with
it? Must I let villas and _poderi_ go to you, a murderer
and thief, that you may beget by means of them other
murderers and thieves? No--if my cough would but 115
allow me to speak!

_Intendant._ What am I to expect? You are going to punish me?

_Monsignor._ Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot
afford to cast away a chan