The three brigands crossed themselves, and expressed the regrets which good-breeding required of them. The one that had been the last to help himself to a cigarette now returned the case to Asabri, with a bow and a mumbling of thanks.
"What a jolly life you lead," exclaimed the banker. "Tell me, you have had some good hauls lately? What?"
The oldest of the three, a dark, taciturn youth, answered, "The gentleman is a great joker."
"Believe me," said Asabri, "it is from habit—not from the heart. When I rode out from Rome to-day, it was with the intention never to return. When I came upon you and saw your long guns and suspected your profession in life, I said: 'Good! Perhaps these young men will murder me for my watch and cigarette case and the loose silver in my breeches pocket, and save me a world of trouble——'"
The three brigands protested that nothing had ever been farther from their thoughts.
"Instead of which," he went on, "you have fed me and put heart in me. I shall return to Rome in the morning and face whatever music my own infatuated foolishness has set going. Do you understand anything of finance?"
The taciturn brigand grinned sheepishly.
He said that he had had one once; but that the priest had touched it with a holy relic and it had gone away. "It was on the back of my neck," he said.
Asabri laughed.
"I should have said banking," said he, "stocks and bonds."