Parozzi.--Well, as things stand now--I verily believe that Falieri
is going to moralise.

Contarino.--That is ever the way with old sinners when they have
lost the power to sin any longer. Then they are ready enough to
weep over their past life, and talk loudly about repentance and
reformation. Now, for my own part, I am perfectly well satisfied
with my wanderings from the common beaten paths of morality and
prudence. They serve to convince me that I am not one of your
every-day men, who sit cramped up in the chimney-corner, lifeless,
phlegmatic, and shudder when they hear of any extraordinary
occurrence. Nature evidently has intended me to be a libertine, and
I am determined to fulfil my destination. Why, if spirits like ours
were not produced every now and then, the world would absolutely go
fast asleep, but we rouse it by deranging the old order of things,
force mankind to quicken their snail's pace, furnish a million of
idlers with riddles which they puzzle their brains about without
being able to comprehend, infuse some hundreds of new ideas into the
heads of the great multitude, and, in short, are as useful to the
world as tempests are, which dissipate those exhalations with which
Nature otherwise would poison herself.

Falieri.--Excellent sophistry, by my honour. Why, Contarino,
ancient Rome has had an irreparable loss in not having numbered you
among her orators. It is a pity, though, that there should be so
little that's solid wrapped up in so many fine-sounding words. Now
learn that while you, with this rare talent of eloquence, have been
most unmercifully wearing out the patience of your good-natured
hearers, Falieri has been in ACTION. The Cardinal Gonzaga is