"There is enough in this world to keep a man in a bad humour all his life." "I might say that," answered Gianbattista, turning round on his stool and watching his master's angular movements as he rapidly paced the room.

"I might abuse fate--but you! You are rich, married, a father, a great artist!" "What stuff!" interrupted Marzio, standing still with his long legs apart, and folding his arms as he spoke through his teeth, between which he still held his pipe.

"Rich?
Yes--able to have a good coat for feast-days, meat when I want it, and my brother's company when I don't want it--for a luxury, you know! Able to take my wife to Frascati on the last Thursday of October as a great holiday.

My wife, too! A creature of beads and saints and little books with crosses on them--who would leer at a friar through the grating of a confessional, and who makes the house hideous with her howling if I choose to eat a bit of pork on a Friday! A good wife indeed! A jewel of a wife, and an apoplexy on all such jewels! A nice wife, who has a face like a head from a tombstone in the Campo Varano for her husband, and who has brought up her daughter to believe that her father is condemned to everlasting flames because he hates cod-fish--salt cod-fish soaked in water! A wife who sticks images in the lining of my hat to convert me, and sprinkles holy water on me Then she thinks I am asleep, but I caught her at that the other night--" "Indeed, they say the devil does not like holy water," remarked Gianbattista, laughing.
"And you want to many my daughter, you young fool," continued Marzio, not heeding the interruption.

"You do.