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It is now time that you should earn that bread for yourself, which hitherto you have owed to our bounty.-Look! here hast thou a dagger of the finest steel; you must charge for its use by the inch. If you plunge it in only one inch deep into the bosom of his foe, your employer must reward you with only one sequin: if two inches, with ten sequins; if three, with twenty; if the whole dagger, you may then name your own price. Here is next a glass poniard; whomsoever this pierces, that man's death is certain.-As soon as the blow is given, you must break the dagger in the wound; the flesh will close over the point which has been broken off, and which will keep its quarters till the day of resurrection!-Lastly, observe this metallic dagger; its cavity conceals a subtile poison, which whenever you touch this spring, will immediately infuse death into the veins of him whom the weapon's point hath wounded-Take these daggers; in giving them I present you with a capital, capable of bringing home to you most heavy and most precious interest.'

Abællino received the instruments of death, but his hand shook as it grasped 'them.

"Possest of such unfailing weapons, of

what immense sums must your robberies have made you, master!'

'Scoundrel!' interrupted Matteo, frowning and offended, among us robbery is unknown. What? Do you take us for common plunderers, for mere thieves, cut-purses, house-breakers, and villains of that low miserable stamp?'

( Perhaps what you wish me to take you for, is something worse; for to speak openly, Matteo, villains of that stamp are contented with plundering a purse or a casket, which can easily be filled again; but that which we take from others is a jewel which a man never has but once, and which once stolen can never be replaced. Are we not then a thousand times more atrocious plunderers?'

By the House at Loretto, I think you have a mind to moralise, Abællino?'

'Hark ye, Matteo, only one question; at the day of judgment, which think you will hold his head highest, the thief, or the assssin ?"

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Think not, that Abællino speaks thus from want of resolution. Speak but the word, and I murder half the senators of Venice; but still...'

Fool! know, the bravo must be above

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crediting the nurse's dull tales of vice and virtue. What is virtue? What is vice? Nothing but such things as forms of government, custom, manners and education have made sacred: and that which men are able to make honorable at one time, it is in their power to make dishonorable at another, whenever the humor take them: had not the senate forbidden us to give opinions freely respecting the politics of Venice, there would have been nothing wrong in giving such opinions; and were the senate to declare that it is right to give such opinions, that which to-day is thought a crime, would be thought meritorious to-morrow Then pr'ythee let us have no more of such doubts as these. We are men, as much as are the Doge and his senators, and have reason as much as they have to lay down the law of right and wrong, and to decree what shall be vice, and what shall be virtue."

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Abællino laughed-Matteo proceeded with increased animation.

"Perhaps you may tell me that our trade is dishonorable! And what then is the thing called honor? "Tis a word, an empty sound, a mere fantastic creature of the imagination!-Ask, as you traverse some frequented street, in what honor consists ?

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The usurer will answer--to be honor. Iable is to be rich, and he has most honor who can heap up the greatest number of sequins. By no means,' cries the volup tuary; honor consists in being beloved by every handsome woman, and finding no virtue proof against your attacks.''How mistaken!' interrupts the general; to conquer whole cities, to destroy whole armies, to ruin whole provinces, that indeed brings real honor!'--the man of let ters places his renown in the number of pages which he has either written or read; the tinker in the number of pots and kettles which he has made or mended; the nun, in the number of good things which she has done, or bad things which she has resisted; the coquette in the list of her admirers; the republic, in the extent of her provinces; and thus my friend, every one thinks that honor consists in something different from the rest. And why then should not the bravo think, that honor consists in reaching the perfection of his trade, and in guiding a dagger to the heart of an enemy with unerring aim?"

"By my life, 'tis a pity, Matteo, that you should be a bravo; the schools have lost an excellent teacher of philosophy!'

Do you think so?Why the fact is

thus, Abællino-I was educated in a monastery; my father was a dignified prelate in Lucca, and my mother a nun of the Ursuline Order, greatly respected for her chastity and devotion-Now, Signor, it was thought fitting, that I should apply closely to my studies; my father, good man, would fain have made me the light of the church; but I soon found, that I was better qualified for an incendiary's torch. I followed the bent of my genius, yet count I not my studies thrown away, since they taught me more philosophy than to tremble at the phantoms created. by my own imagination. Follow my example, friend, and so farewell.'

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