Neapolitan service,
quarrelled, in a gambling hell, with some soldiers, who called him a
Corsican goatherd, and other insulting names. He drew his sword,
but being only one against three, he would have fared very ill if a
stranger, who was playing in the same room, had not exclaimed, "I, too,
am a Corsican," and come to his rescue. This stranger was one of the
Barricini, who, for that matter, was not acquainted with his countryman.
After mutual explanations, they interchanged courtesies and vowed
eternal friendship. For on the Continent, quite contrary to their
practice in their own island, Corsicans quickly become friends. This
fact was clearly exemplified on the present occasion. As long as della
Rebbia and Barricini remained in Italy they were close friends. Once
they were back in Corsica, they saw each other but very seldom, although
they both lived in the same village; and when they died, it was reported
that they had not spoken to each other for five or six years. Their sons
lived in the same fashion--"on ceremony," as they say in the island;
one of them Ghilfuccio, Orso's father, was a soldier; the other Giudice
Barricini, was a lawyer. Having both become heads of families, and being
separated by their professions, they scarcely ever had an opportunity of
seeing or hearing of each other.

One day, however, about the year 1809, Giudice read in a newspaper at
Bastia that Captain Ghilfuccio had just been decorated, and remarked,
before witnesses, that he was not at all surprised, considering that the
family enjoyed the protection of General -----. This remark was reported
at Vienna to Ghilfuccio, who told one of his countrymen that, when he
got back to Corsica, he would find Giudice a very rich man, because he
made more money out of the suits he lost than out of those he won. It
was never known whether he meant this as an insinuation that the lawyer
cheated his clients, or as a mere allusion to the commonplace truth that
a bad cause often brings a lawyer more profit than a good one. However
that may have been, the lawyer Barricini heard of the epigram, and never
forgot it. In 1812 he applied for the post of mayor of his commune,
and had every hope of being appointed, when General ----- wrote to the
prefect, to recommend one of Ghilfuccio's wife's relations. The prefect
lost no time in carrying out the general's wish, and Barricini felt no
doubt that he owed his failure to the intrigues of Ghilfuccio. In 1814,
after