Lastly, he cut off a hunch of bread and a slice of raw ham, and gave them to his niece.

"Oh, the merry life a bandit lives!" cried the student of theology, after he had swallowed a few mouthfuls.

"You'll try it some day, perhaps, Signor della Rebbia, and you'll find out how delightful it is to acknowledge no master save one's own fancy!" Hitherto the bandit had talked Italian.

He now proceeded in French.
"Corsica is not a very amusing country for a young man to live in--but for a bandit, there's the difference! The women are all wild about us.
I, as you see me now, have three mistresses in three different villages.
I am at home in every one of them, and one of the ladies is married to a gendarme!" "You know many languages, monsieur!" said Orso gravely.
"If I talk French, 'tis because, look you, _maxima debetur pueris reverentia_! We have made up our minds, Brandolaccio and I, that the little girl shall turn out well, and go straight." "When she is turned fifteen," remarked Chilina's uncle, "I'll find a good husband for her.

I have one in my eye already." "Shall you make the proposal yourself ?" said Orso.
"Of course! Do you suppose that any well-to-do man in this neighbourhood, to whom I said, 'I should be glad to see a marriage between your son and Michilina Savelli,' would require any pressing ?" "I wouldn't advise him to!" quoth the other bandit.