"Who can create grave disorders and will do so."
"Disorders, even insurrections, do not greatly alarm authority nowadays; they are easily pressed since the invention of the quick-firing guns. The army is always on the side of order."
Don Silverio rose.
"Most honourable Corradini! your views and mine are so far asunder that no amount of discussion can assimilate them. Allow me to salute you."
"Wait one instant, reverence," said the Syndic. "May I ask how it is that an ecclesiastic of your appearance and your intellect can have been buried so long in such an owls' nest as Ruscino?"
"Sir," replied Don Silverio very coldly, "ask my superiors: I am but one of the least of the servants of the Church."
"You might be one of her greatest servants, if influence —"
"I abhor the word influence. It means a bribe too subtle to be punished, too gilded to alarm."
"Nay, sometimes it is but a word in season, a pressure in the right place."
"It means that which cannot serve the poor man without degrading him."