The Syndic was a trifle discontented and inclined to intrigue; that was true, Grio knew it.

But to parley with the Grand Duke's emissaries, and strive to get and give not, that was one thing; while to betray the town and deliver it tied and bound into the hands of its arch-enemy, was another and a far more weighty matter.

One, too, to which in Grio's judgment--and in the dark lanes of life he had seen and weighed many men--the magistrate would never be brought.
"Shall you need my aid with him ?" he asked after a while, seeing the scholar still wrapt in thought.

The question was not lacking in craft.
"Your aid?
With whom ?" "With Messer Blondel." "Pshaw, man," Basterga answered, rousing himself from his reverie.

"I had forgotten him and was thinking of that villain Scioppius and his tract against Joseph Justus.