lest _my_ Ferdinands should drive _his_ Ferdinands out of the market! Had I done the same in England, I suppose they would, on discovering my talent, have made me master of their mint, in place of sending me to expiate my offence in a dungeon--_basta_ about that affair!--but when I had given up making Ferdinands, and took to minting _Domitians_, what business was that to the King of Naples, I wonder, unless indeed I had put _his_ name to that tyrant's _head_? Yet he sent me a second time to prison for it, notwithstanding for which in return I have taken the liberty of sending him to a warmer place. See, here's a pretty baioccho--Ferdinand's head on one side, and a '_concordia-Augustorum_' on the other, where the devil and he are holding hands over a lighted altar, he wanting to withdraw his hand,--but the devil's clutch is too tight for that!--whilst a little imp is putting a bit of live coal into his palm, and another is doing the same under his right foot! For four elegant horses in bronze, of which _I forgot the age_, and sold them to St Angelo as _antiques_, I was sent to prison again, and a third time. Though, when it suited _him_ last year to sell off certain old horseflesh that had been many years on his hands as _young_, _his_ purchaser of course got no redress. Out upon that old Birbone! with his galleries, his harems, and his horses;--but he eats too much, and is never well,--a great consolation to me, who might else have repined at his successes; but when I compare my _health_ with his, I bless the good St Januario who keeps me poor! Again, I ought to be grateful to our good Saint that, though men may pretend that I lie and cheat, (which perhaps I do a little,) you never heard any body say of _me_, what all the world says of HIM, that I am _cruel_,--_mai_, you never heard that; and if I make money occasionally in some way that it don't _sound_ well to speak of, what then? I never hoard it up, the lottery office is my banker, and it circulates again presently. And as to cheating, if we look it boldly in the face, and see in what company we cheat, why should I be ashamed of what all the world does here from King Ferdinand, to Beppo Tuzzi of the Mergellina? Didn't Ferdinand try hard to cheat you last year in the sulphur question? and would he not have succeeded, too, unless you had thought of mixing up the sulphur with some nitre and charcoal, and of converting it into a _question of gunpowder_!" "That's true, Coco! and now tell us of your last device for raising the wind." "Here it is," and Coco has presented us with a small opaque lachrymatory, glistening all over in the exquisite irridescence of old glass. "Was it not beautiful?" he enquired. "Yes; and ancient as well," replied we; "the decomposition of the glass showed that, and the elegant and classical form of the vessel showed it too." "Well! he would manufacture just such another before us, if we would like to see it done!" "_Comè?_ we should be