At this ludicrous appeal, so like a girl’s, and the ridiculous manner in which it was uttered, though I had a mind to kill, I lost half my rage and could not forbear laughing. Turning to Chioccia, however, I bade him make fast the door; for I was resolved to inflict the same punishment upon all three. Still with my sword-point at his throat, and pricking him a little now and then, I terrified him with the most desperate threats, and finding that he made no defense, was rather at a loss how to proceed. It was too poor a revenge--it was nothing--when suddenly it came into my head to make it effectual, and compel him to espouse the girl upon the spot. “Up! Off with that ring on thy finger, villain!” I cried. “Marry her this instant, and then I shall have my full revenge.” “Anything--anything you like, provided you will not kill me,” he eagerly answered. Removing my sword a little: “Now, then,” I said, “put on the ring.” He did so, trembling all the time. “This is not enough. Go and bring me two notaries to draw up the contract.” Then, addressing the girl and her mother in French: “While the notaries and witnesses are coming, I will give you a word of advice. The first of you that I know to utter a word about my affairs, I will kill you--all three. So remember.” I afterward said in Italian to Paolo: “If you offer the slightest opposition to the least thing I choose to propose, I will cut you up into mince-meat with this good sword.” “It is enough,” he interrupted in alarm, “that you will not kill me. I will do whatever you wish.” So this singular contract was duly drawn out and signed. My rage and fever were gone. I paid the notaries, and went home.--_The Biography._ _CRITICISM OF A STATUE OF HERCULES_ Bandinello was incensed to such a degree that he was ready to burst with fury, and turning to me said, “What faults have you to find with my statues?” I answered, “I will soon tell them, if you have but the patience to hear me.” He replied, “Tell them, then.” The duke and all present listened with the utmost attention. I began by promising that I was sorry to be obliged to lay before him all the blemishes of his work, and that I was not so properly delivering my own sentiments as declaring what was said of it by the artistic school of Florence. However, as the fellow at one time said something disobliging, at another made some offensive gesture with his hands or his feet, he put me into such a passion that I behaved with a rudeness which I should otherwise have avoided.