“Enjoy yourselves! Oh, caro amico, you do with regard to your pleasures what you do with your music,—you steal a little from the Continent, and always spoil it in the adaptation.”
Maitland sipped his wine in half-sullen silence for some minutes, and then said, “You think then, really, we ought to be at Naples?”
“I am sure of it. Baretti,—do you forget Baretti? he had the wine-shop at the end of the Contrada St. Lucia.”
“I remember him as a Caraorrista.”
“The same; he is here now. He tells me that the Court is so completely in the hands of the Queen that they will not hear of any danger; that they laugh every time Cavour is mentioned; and now that both France and England have withdrawn their envoys, the King says openly, 'It is a pleasure to drive out on the Chiaja when one knows they 'll not meet a French gendarme or an English detective.'”
“And what does Baretti say of popular feeling?”
“He says the people would like to do something, though nobody seems to know what it ought to be. They thought that Milano's attempt t 'other day was clever, and they think it might n't be bad to blow up the Emperor, or perhaps the Pope, or both; but he also says that the Camorra are open to reason, and that Victor Emmanuel and Cavour are as legitimate food for an explosive shell as the others; and, in fact, any convulsion that will smash the shutters and lead to pillage must be good.”
“You think Baretti can be depended on?”
“I know he can. He has been Capo Camorrista eight years in one of the vilest quarters of Naples; and if there were a suspicion of him, he'd have been stabbed long ago.”
“And what is he doing here?”