id Carlo.

'Oh, street-fighting!' Captain Gambier vented a soldier's disgust at the
notion. 'They're not in Paris. Will you step forward?'

Just then the tall Greek approached the party of English. The
introduction was delayed.

He was addressed by the fair lady, in the island tongue, as 'Mr.
Pericles.' She thanked him for his extreme condescension in deigning to
notice them. But whatever his condescension had been, it did not extend
to an admitted acquaintance with the poor speech of the land of fogs. An
exhibition of aching deafness was presented to her so resolutely, that
at last she faltered, 'What! have you forgotten English, Mr. Pericles?
You spoke it the other day.'

'It is ze language of necessity--of commerce,' he replied.

'But, surely, Mr. Pericles, you dare not presume to tell me you choose
to be ignorant of it whenever you please?'

'I do not take grits into ze teeth, madame; no more.' 'But you speak it
perfectly.'

'Perfect it may be, for ze transactions of commerce. I wish to keep my
teez.'

'Alas!' said the lady, compelled, 'I must endeavour to swim in French.'

'At your service, madame,' quoth the Greek, with an immediate doubling
of the length of his body.

Carlo heard little more than he knew; but the confirmation of what
we know will sometimes instigate us like fresh intelligence, and the
lover's heart was quick to apprehend far more than he knew in one
direction. He divined instantaneously that the English-Austrian
spoken of by Barto Rizzo was the officer sitting on horseback within
half-a-dozen yards of him. The certainty of the thought cramped his
muscles. For the rest, it became clear to him that the attempt of the
millionaire connoisseur to carry off Vittoria had received the tacit
sanction of the Austrian authorities; for reasons quite explicable, Mr.
Pericles, as the English lady called him, distinctly hinted it, while
affirming with vehement self-laudation that his scheme had succeeded for
the vindication of Art.

'The opera you will hear zis night,' he said, 'will be hissed. You will
hear a chorus of screech-owls to each song of that poor Irma, whom the
Italian people call "crabapple." Well; she pleases German ears, and if
they can support her, it is well. But la Vittoria--your Belloni--you
will not hear; and why? She has been false to her Art, false! She has
become a little devil in politics. It is a Guy Fawkes femelle! She has
been guilty of the immense crime of ingratitude.