Let us see whom are you abusing in those verses?
Is it Don Ciccio or His Majesty?
You will not reply?
Are you afraid that I shall denounce you at the Quirinal ?" "No flies enter a closed mouth," replied the old conspirator, justifying the proverb by the manner in which he shut his toothless mouth, into which, indeed, at that moment, neither a fly nor the tiniest grain of dust could enter.
"An excellent saying," returned the Marquis, with a laugh, "and one I should like to see engraved on the facade of all the modern parliaments.
But between your poetry and your adages have you taken the time to write for me to that bookseller at Vienna, who owns the last copy of the pamphlet on the trial of the bandit Hafner ?" "Patience," said the merchant.

"I will write." "And my document on the siege of Rome, by Bourbon, those three notarial deeds which you promised me, have you dislodged them ?" "Patience, patience," repeated the merchant, adding, as he pointed with a comical mixture of irony and of despair to the disorder in his shop, "How can you expect me to know where I am in the midst of all this ?" "Patience, patience," repeated Montfanon.

"For a month you have been singing that old refrain.

If, instead of composing wretched verses, you would attend to your correspondence, and, if, instead of buying continually, you would classify this confused mass....

But," said he, more seriously, with a brusque gesture, "I am wrong to reproach you for your purchases, since I have come to speak to you of one of the last.
Cardinal Guerillot told me that you showed him, the other day, an interesting prayer-book, although in very bad condition, which you found in Tuscany.