They put up at an inn of very humble pretensions, and dined under an
awning. Merton was more than usually gay; he pressed the lacryma upon
his friend, and conversed gayly. "Well, my dear friend, we have foiled
Signor Zicci in one of his predictions at least. You will have no faith
in him hereafter."

"The Ides are come, not gone."

"Tush! if he is a soothsayer, you are not Caesar. It is your vanity
that makes you credulous. Thank Heaven, I do not think myself of such
importance that the operations of Nature should be changed in order to
frighten me."

"But why should the operations of Nature be changed? There may be a
deeper philosophy than we dream of,--a philosophy that discovers the
secrets of Nature, but does not alter, by penetrating, its courses."

"Ah! you suppose Zicci to be a prophet,--a reader of the future; perhaps
an associate of Genii and Spirits!"

"I know not what to conjecture; but I see no reason why he should seek,
even if an impostor, to impose on me. An impostor must have some motive
for deluding us,--either ambition or avarice. I am neither rich nor
powerful; Zicci spends more in a week than I do in a year. Nay, a
Neapolitan banker told me that the sums invested by Zicci in his hands,
were enough to purchase half the lands of the Neapolitan noblesse."

"Grant this to be true: do you suppose the love to dazzle and mystify is
not as strong with some natures as that of gold and power with others?
Zicci has a moral ostentation; and the same character that makes him