plendiano and Capuzzi has had the effect of waking the police up
from their gentle slumbers, so that they will now be on the watch for
us, as far as their feeble powers enable them. No, Antonio, we must
resort to stratagem: '_Con arte e con inganno si vive mezzo l'anno; con
inganno e con arte si vive l'altro parte._' That is what Dame Caterina
says, and she is quite right. I can't help laughing at our having set
to work just as if we were innocent boys; but it is my fault, chiefly,
seeing that I have the advantage of you in years. Tell me, Antonio,
if our plot had succeeded, and you had really carried Marianna off,
where should you have gone with her?--where could you have kept her
hidden?--how could you have got married by the priest so speedily that
the old man should not have managed to interfere? As it is, in a very
few days you shall actually carry her off. I have enlisted the aid of
Nicolo Musso and Formica, and in conjunction with them thought out a
plan which scarcely can break down. Comfort yourself, therefore, Signor
Formica is going to help you."

"Signor Formica!" repeated Antonio, in an indifferent, almost
contemptuous tone; "and pray how can that 'funny-man' help me?"

"Ho, ho!" cried Salvator, "I must beg you to treat Signor Formica with
a proper amount of respect. Don't you know that he is a kind of wizard,
and has all sorts of wondrous secret arts at his command? I tell you,
Signor Formica is going to help you. And old Maria Agli, our great and
grand 'Doctor Graziano,' of Bologna, has joined in our plot, and is
going to play a most important part in it. You shall carry your
Marianna off from Musso's theatre."

"Salvator," said Antonio, "you are buoying me up with vain hopes. You
have said, yourself, that Capuzzi will be thoroughly on his guard
against any more open attacks; so, after what has happened to him
already, how can he possibly be induced to go to Musso's theatre
another time?"

"It is not such a difficult matter as you suppose," answered Salvator,
"to get him to go back there again; the difficulty will be to induce
him to go without his companions, and to get him on to the stage. But
however that may be, you must now arrange matters with Marianna so as
to be ready to fly from Rome whenever the favourable moment arrives.
You will have to go to Florence. Your art will be an introduction to
you there to begin with, and I will take care that you shall not want
for friends, or for valuable supp