thout a fight, and my own belief is that before the winter is
half over we shall have Jesuits and Gregorians and Sanfedists and
all the rest of the crew about our ears, plotting and intriguing, and
poisoning off everybody they can't bribe."

"That's likely enough."

"Very well, then; shall we wait here, meekly sending in petitions, till
Lambruschini and his pack have persuaded the Grand Duke to put us bodily
under Jesuit rule, with perhaps a few Austrian hussars to patrol the
streets and keep us in order; or shall we forestall them and take
advantage of their momentary discomfiture to strike the first blow?"

"Tell us first what blow you propose?"

"I would suggest that we start an organized propaganda and agitation
against the Jesuits."

"A pamphleteering declaration of war, in fact?"

"Yes; exposing their intrigues, ferreting out their secrets, and calling
upon the people to make common cause against them."

"But there are no Jesuits here to expose."

"Aren't there? Wait three months and see how many we shall have. It'll
be too late to keep them out then."

"But really to rouse the town against the Jesuits one must speak
plainly; and if you do that how will you evade the censorship?"

"I wouldn't evade it; I would defy it."

"You would print the pamphlets anonymously? That's all very well,
but the fact is, we have all seen enough of the clandestine press to
know----"

"I did not mean that. I would print the pamphlets openly, with our names
and addresses, and let them prosecute us if they dare."

"The project is a perfectly mad one," Grassini exclaimed. "It is simply
putting one's head into the lion's mouth out of sheer wantonness."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid!" Galli cut in sharply; "we shouldn't ask you
to go to prison for our pamphlets."

"Hold your tongue, Galli!" said Riccardo. "It's not a question of being
afraid; we're all as ready as you are to go to prison if there's any
good to be got by it, but it is childish to run into danger for nothing.
For my part, I have an amendment to the proposal to suggest."

"Well, what is it?"

"I think we might contrive, with care, to fight the Jesuits without
coming into collision with the censorship."

"I don't see how you are going to manage it."

"I think that it is possible to clothe what one has to say in so
roundabout a form that----"

"That the censorship won't understand it? And then you'll expect every
poor artisan and labourer to find out the