"'Nor that either,' said I.
"'Well, now,' said he, 'you are one of the never-contented. I see you are determined by hook or by crook to keep the ring all to yourself.'
"'No,' I replied, 'I do not wish for anything that is not strictly fair. What I propose is this—viz., that I should keep the ring in my possession until you have disbursed the three pauls out of your share. Then, after the ring has been estimated by a trustworthy party and turned into money, then we will share the produce equally.'
"'Ho! ho!' laughed he, 'so that's what you are after, is it? Ha! ha! I see it all. You fancy that under the excuse of waiting for your three pauls (which I know as well as you do yourself you do not care a straw for, since you have become enriched with the half of my treasure) that I am going to allow you quietly to abscond with the ring, which may be worth as much as all the treasure put together, for what I know, never to be heard of afterwards. Well, that is a cool idea! Ha! ha! ha!'
"'I protest,' said I, 'that such a thought never entered my head.'
"'Oh, of course not,' said he, incredulously. 'Friend Antonio, it is clear that our respective mothers hatched neither of us two yesterday. I am only a poor goatherd, yet I have learnt as much of the world from watching the antics of my goats as you have in trailing and pruning your vines. We are both of us men, and we know what men are. We all have our wants, and our brains were given us to supply them.'
"'Yes,' replied I, 'in a conscientious and legitimate manner, and not to over-reach our fellow-men in the shortest and most unscrupulous way that our petty interests may dictate, to the scandal of all good saints and the blessed Madonna at their head.'
"And here I launched out into a moral strain for at least an hour, hoping to bring him round by dint of argument and persuasion to my view of the case, but finding him at the end of that time still obdurate, and in the same state of hardness of heart as before—for who can moralise with such a heathen as Peppe?—I attempted to seize the ring by force, intending to keep it until he should pay me the debt he owed me, but he was before me, and a scuffle ensued, he declaring that he would not suffer me to keep the ring in my possession, and I being equally firm in refusing to let him keep it in his without first paying me my three pauls.
"He promised faithfully to pay me the debt when he should have changed one of the pieces of money that fell to his lot; until then, however, I remained firm in my resolution. Words had by this time led to blows, and the conflict was getting desperate, when, it being now fairly morning, we were interrupted by the sacristan entering the church to light the candles on the altar.
"Starting back in wonderment and terror at what he naturally believed to be a miraculous resuscitation, it it was some time before he was sufficiently calm to hear from me the true account of the case.