said Paolo, piling Glyndon's plate, and then
filling his glass. "I wish, signor, now the Padrone is gone,--not,"
added Paolo, as he cast rather a frightened and suspicious glance round
the room, "that I mean to say anything disrespectful of him,--I wish, I
say, now that he is gone, that you would take pity on yourself, and ask
your own heart what your youth was meant for? Not to bury yourself alive
in these old ruins, and endanger body and soul by studies which I am
sure no saint could approve of."

"Are the saints so partial, then, to your own occupations, Master
Paolo?"

"Why," answered the bandit, a little confused, "a gentleman with plenty
of pistoles in his purse need not, of necessity, make it his profession
to take away the pistoles of other people! It is a different thing for
us poor rogues. After all, too, I always devote a tithe of my gains
to the Virgin; and I share the rest charitably with the poor. But eat,
drink, enjoy yourself; be absolved by your confessor for any little
peccadilloes and don't run too long scores at a time,--that's my advice.
Your health, Excellency! Pshaw, signor, fasting, except on the days
prescribed to a good Catholic, only engenders phantoms."

"Phantoms!"

"Yes; the devil always tempts the empty stomach. To covet, to hate, to
thieve, to rob, and to murder,--these are the natural desires of a man
who is famishing. With a full belly, signor, we are at peace with all
the world. That's right; you like the partridge! Cospetto! when I myself
have passed two or three days in the mountains, with nothing from sunset
to sunrise but a black crust and an onion, I grow as fierce as a wolf.
That's not the worst, too. In these times I see little imps dancing
before me. Oh, yes; fasting is as full of spectres as a field of
battle."

Glyndon thought there was some sound philosophy in the reasoning of
his companion; and certainly the more he ate and drank, the more the
recollection of the past night and of Mejnour's desertion faded from his
mind. The casement was open, the breeze blew, the sun shone,--all Nature
was merry; and merry as Nature herself grew Maestro Paolo. He talked
of adventures, of travel, of women, with a hearty gusto that had its
infection. But Glyndon listened yet more complacently when Paolo turned
with an arch smile to praises of the eye, the teeth, the ankles, and the
shape of the handsome Fillide.

This man, indeed, seemed the very personation of animal sensual life. H