heroine--such a love--she has never seen her
sweetheart, yet she is most devotedly attached, and has suffered more
for his sake than any mortal could endure.

_B._ Most heroines generally do.

_A._ I have had her into various dungeons for three or four years, on
black bread and a broken pitcher of water--she has been starved to
death--lain for months and months upon wet straw--had two brain
fevers--five times has she risked violation, and always has picked up,
or found in the belt of her infamous ravishers, a stiletto, which she
has plunged into their hearts, and they have expired with or without a
groan.

_B._ Excellent: and of course comes out of her dungeons each time as
fresh, as sweet, as lovely, as pure, as charming, and as constant as
ever.

_A._ Exactly; nothing can equal her infinite variety of adventure, and
her imperishable beauty and unadhesive cleanliness of person; and, as
for lives, she has more than a thousand cats. After nine months'
confinement in a dungeon, four feet square, when it is opened for her
release, the air is perfumed with the ambrosia which exhales from her
sweet person.

_B._ Of course it does. The only question is, what ambrosia smells like.
But let me know something about your hero.

_A._ He is a prince and a robber.

_B._ The two professions are not at all incompatible. Go on.

_A._ He is the chief of a band of robbers, and is here, there, and
everywhere. He fills all Europe with terror, admiration, and love.

_B._ Very good.

_A._ His reasons for joining the robbers are, of course, a secret (and
upon my word they are equally a secret to myself); but it is wonderful
the implicit obedience of his men, and the many acts of generosity of
which he is guilty. I make him give away a great deal more money than
his whole band ever take, which is so far awkward, that the query may
arise in what way he keeps them together, and supplies them with food
and necessaries.

_B._ Of course with _I O U's_ upon his princely domains.

_A._ I have some very grand scenes, amazingly effective; for instance,
what do you think, at the moment after the holy mass has been performed
in St Peter's at Rome, just as the pope is about to put the sacred wafer
into his mouth and bless the whole world, I make him snatch the wafer
out of the pope's hand, and get clear off with it.

_B._ What for, may I ask?

_A._ That is a secret which I do not reveal. The whole arrangement of
that part of the plot is