“Excellency! Excellency!” exclaims Abbatemaggio deprecatingly, as if pained that the judge should be compelled to listen to such an outburst. Presently he can restrain himself no longer, and both he and Rapi begin simultaneously to harangue the court, until the president orders Abbatemaggio to stop and the captain of carabinieri touches Rapi on the shoulder. The latter is now reduced to tears and wrings his hands as he calls his aged mother to witness that he is an innocent man! Soon order is restored, and the _confronto_ concludes with a sort of summing up of his defence on the part of the “Professor.” It is a model of rhetoric, rather too carefully calculated to appear as sincere as his previous outbursts. He calls down the curses of God upon Abbatemaggio, who listens contemptuously; he protests the purity of his life and motives; he weeps at the irony of fate that keeps him—the merest object of suspicion—confined in a loathsome prison. Then he bows and resumes his seat by the side of Father Ciro Vitozzi, to whom, amid the laughter of the spectators, he has referred as “that holy man there.” And, apart from the argument between him and Abbatemaggio, there has really been no more denunciation, no more emotion, no more tears, than if an ordinary criminal attorney in a New York City court were summing up an important case. Court adjourns. No sooner has the judge departed than an outcry is heard from the cage. “I am tired—_tired_—_tired_!” exclaims an agonized voice. “I have been in prison for five years! Everybody else talks and I have to listen. I am not allowed to speak, and nothing ever happens! It is interminable! I cannot stand it!” It is “Erricone” having one of his periodical moments of relief. After all, one is not inclined to blame him very much, for there is a good deal of truth in what he says—owing to the way the case was bungled in its earlier stages. The carabinieri rush up, “Erricone” is pacified by his fellow Camorrists, and quiet is restored. One inquires if there is generally any more excitement than has just occurred, and is told that it has been quite a sensational day, but then—that “Erricone” is always “yelling.” A good many defendants make a noise and carry on—and so do their relatives—after court has adjourned, in America.