"
"Am I a dog, to meet this end!" demanded Pippo, fiercely--"or that I
should not know my own bones from those of some infidel rascal, who may
happen to be my neighbor!"
"We have had one disturbance about brutes, let us not have another;"
sarcastically rejoined Il Maledetto. "Princes and nobles," he added, with
affected gravity, "we are here bound by the heels, during the good
pleasure of those who rule in Vevey; the wisest course will be to pass the
time in good-humor with each other, and as pleasantly as our condition
will allow. The reverend Conrad shall have all the honors of a cardinal,
Pippo shall have the led horse at his funeral, and, as for these worthy
Vaudois, who, no doubt, are men of substance in their way, they shall be
bailiffs sent by Berne to rule between the four walls of our palace! Life
is but a graver sort of mummery, gentlemen, and the second of its barest
secrets is to make others fancy us what we wish to appear--the first
being, without question, the faculty of deceiving ourselves. Now each one
has only to imagine that he is the high personage I have just named, and
the most difficult part of the work is achieved to his hands.
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