"There is a chapel in Rome, where there is a wondrously fair statue--the son of a cardinal--I mean his nephew--once.

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Well, she did not cut off his head, but slightly boxed his cheek and bade him go." "I have read all about that in 'Keysler's Travels,'" said I; "do you tell her that I would not touch her with a pair of tongs, unless to seize her nose." "She is fond of lucre," said the man in black; "but does not grudge a faithful priest a little private perquisite," and he took out a very handsome gold repeater.
"Are you not afraid," said I, "to flash that watch before the eyes of a poor tinker in a dingle ?" "Not before the eyes of one like you," said the man in black.
"It is getting late," said I; "I care not for perquisites." "So you will not join us ?" said the man in black.
"You have had my answer," said I.
"If I belong to Rome," said the man in black, "why should not you ?" "I may be a poor tinker," said I; "but I may never have undergone what you have.

You remember, perhaps, the fable of the fox who had lost his tail ?" The man in black winced, but almost immediately recovering himself, he said, "Well, we can do without you, we are sure of winning." "It is not the part of wise people," said I, "to make sure of the battle before it is fought: there's the landlord of the public-house, who made sure that his cocks would win, yet the cocks lost the main, and the landlord is little better than a bankrupt." "People very different from the landlord," said the man in black, "both in intellect and station, think we shall surely win; there are clever machinators among us who have no doubt of our success." "Well," said I, "I will set the landlord aside, and will adduce one who was in every point a very different person from the landlord, both in understanding and station; he was very fond of laying schemes, and, indeed, many of them turned out successful.