This sentence is, to say the least, very obscure. Riccardi had had these two portions of the work in his possession for months, and could long before have discovered from them what he wanted to know. Or had he not condescended to look at them? This seems scarcely credible, and is in direct opposition to what he said to Castelli months before. But a desire to spin the matter out is evident enough from this obscure sentence as well as the rest of the letter. The Master of the Palace then proposed, if it were still impossible to forward the work, to send the ordinances of his Holiness to the Inquisitor at Florence, in order that he, after assuring himself that they had been complied with, might give the _imprimatur_. When Niccolini expressed his suspicions that these delays had been caused by some intrigues of Galileo’s enemies, Riccardi assured him that no one but friends of the famous astronomer had spoken to him on the subject, and that there really had been no cabal of any sort.[241] When Galileo received the news of this letter, which, contrary to all his expectations, once more removed all hope of an end of these transactions into the far future, he could not repress his ill humour. This is plain enough from a letter to Cioli of 3rd May. He begins with the tart remark: “I have read what the Father Master of the Palace has written about the publication of the ‘Dialogues,’ and perceive, to my great vexation, that after keeping me for nearly a year without coming to any conclusion, he means to pursue the same course with his Holiness, namely, to delay and spin out everything with empty words, which it is not easy to put up with.” He then bitterly complains that this letter of Riccardi’s, instead of the promised _imprimatur_, contains nothing but fresh delays on the pretext of conditions with which he had complied several months before, and in such a way as to prove to his Holiness and all who were willing to be convinced that he had done so. “And since I perceive,” he continues bitterly, “that my affairs are afloat on a vast and boundless ocean, while the publication of my book is of the utmost importance to me, as I wish to see the fruits of my labours secured, I have been considering various ways by which it might be accomplished; but the authorization of his Holiness is indispensable for all.” Galileo then says that in order to come to some result it might be of the highest importance some day, and that as soon as possible, to be summoned to appear before his Highness, with the Inquisitor and Father Stephani. He would like to show them the work with all the corrections from the hands of Fathers Riccardi, Visconti, and Stephani, in order that, in the first place, they might see how trivial the alterations were, and in the second, how submissively and reverently he had designated all the evidence and arguments which appeared to confirm an opinion not approved by the authorities, as dreams, chimeras, and nullities. He concludes by saying: