What an effect! Magnificent! Do go on!" Marzio did not need a second invitation to proceed upon his favourite topic.

He was soon launched, and as the little room filled, his pale and sunken cheeks grew red with excitement, his tongue was unloosed, and he poured out a continuous stream of blasphemous ribaldry such as would have shocked the ears of a revolutionist of the year '89 or of a _petroleuse_ of the nineteenth century.

It seemed as though the spring once opened would never dry.

His eyes flashed, his fingers writhed convulsively on the table, and his voice rang out, ironical and cutting, with strange intonations that roused strange feelings in his hearers.

It was the old subject, but he found something new to say upon it at each meeting with his friends, and they wondered where he got the imagination to construct his telling phrases and specious, virulent arguments.
We have all wondered at such men.