"Go on."
"Be patient! There is nothing humiliating in all this. Had there been a single humiliating condition I should not have mentioned the matter to you. Your grandmother wishes you to have an occupation, and also desires that you give a certain guarantee not to take part in political doings. Now there is a decorous way of combining these two points, as you yourself will be obliged to recognise, although I tell you plainly that I had proposed a different course to your grandmother. My idea was that she should place you at the head of her affairs. You would have had enough to do to keep you from thinking of anything else. However, your grandmother's idea is good also. I know fine young fellows like yourself, who think as you do, and who are in the judicial service. It is a most independent and respectable calling. A word from you and you will find yourself an auditor of the court."
"I?" Franco burst out. "I? No, my dear Pasotti! No! They don't send the police into my house—be quiet!—they don't brutally dismiss from service an honest man, whose only crime is that he is my wife's uncle,—be quiet, I tell you!—they don't seek every possible means of reducing my family and myself to the verge of starvation to-day, that they may offer us filthy bread to-morrow! No, my man, no! Do your worst! By God! I am not to be trapped by any one through hunger! Tell my grandmother so, you——you——you——"
Pasotti's nature certainly had much that was feline; he was rapacious, cunning, prudent, a flatterer, quick to feign, but also subject to fits of rage. He had continued to interrupt Maironi's outpouring with protests which became ever more violent, and at this last invective, forseeing the approach of a deluge of accusations which were all the more exasperating because he could guess their character, he also started to his feet.
"Stop!" said he. "What do you mean by all this?"
"Good-night!" cried Franco, who had seized his hat. But Pasotti had no intention of letting him go thus. "One moment!" said he, bringing his fist down swiftly and repeatedly on the little table. "You people are deluding yourselves! You hope great things from that will; but it is not a will at all, it is simply a bit of waste paper, the ravings of a madman!"
Franco, who had already reached the door, stopped short, stunned by the blow. "What will?" said he.
"Come now!" Pasotti retorted, half coldly, half mockingly. "We understand each other perfectly!"
A flash of rage once more set Franco's blood on fire. "We do not!" he cried. "Out with it! Speak! What do you know of any will?"
"Ah! Now we are getting on famously!" Pasotti said with ironical sweetness.