“I will be briefness itself. In the first place, you must know that I have—or rather had—an idle, unscrupulous rascal of an apprentice in my business.”
The priest pursed up his mouth contemptuously.
“In the second place, this same good-for-nothing fellow had the impertinence to fall in love with Nanina.”
Father Rocco started, and listened eagerly.
“But I must do the girl the justice to say that she never gave him the slightest encouragement; and that, whenever he ventured to speak to her, she always quietly but very decidedly repelled him.”
“A good girl!” said Father Rocco. “I always said she was a good girl. It was a mistake on my part ever to have distrusted her.”
“Among the other offenses,” continued the little man, “of which I now find my scoundrel of an apprentice to have been guilty, was the enormity of picking the lock of my desk, and prying into my private papers.”
“You ought not to have had any. Private papers should always be burned papers.”
“They shall be for the future; I will take good care of that.”
“Were any of my letters to you about Nanina among these private papers?”