“The wine,” cried my Italian Quixote, “is in ferment! We drink of it, and our hearts are turned to madness! We need more of your English sang-froid”--he called it “sanga-froida,” and puzzled me for a passing instant. “The hour is here,” he declared, “and the men are here! But, until now, we have ruined everything by too much precipitation, and against that we must now be on our guard!” Of the volubility and energy with which he delivered himself of all this, and much more, I cannot convey even the slightest idea. I can give no notion of his fertility in unnecessary vowels, and I should be afraid to say how many syllables he made of the word precipitation, or how he would have spelled it in English if he had tried. “It is for you, sir,” he thundered, stopping in his headlong walk to shake a long forefinger in my face--“it is for you to teach us to be calm!” I asked him to take his first lesson there and then, and to begin it by being seated. “Ah,” said he, “that is to be practical--that is to be English. To be practical and to be English is to be successful. You shall advise us--you shall lead us to victory!” In his discovery of the excellence of my practical method he had forgotten all about it, and was pounding up and down the room at as great a rate as ever, when I took him by the shoulders and forced him into a chair. “Let us talk business,” I said, severely; “if this means anything at all, it means action.” “Action,” he responded, “decisive and immediate!” “Action,” I retorted, “well matured and sane!” “Ah! yes, yes,” cried Ruffiano; “again, dear sir, you correct me. That is why I am here. But do not think because I have no patience--do not think because I am an old--an old--” He searched in his mind for a simile, and burst out with “gas-balloon” with a laugh of childish amusement at his own impetuosity. “Do not you think because I am an old gas-balloon that there are not among us no wiser and cooler heads than mine! We are at a white-heat now, but there are men among us who can keep their wits even in a furnace like this. I, dear sir”--he would have been on his feet again but that I checked him--“I am of the inner council. We meet to-night, and, hot as I am, I fear my own heat and that of others. If you wish well to Italy, be one of us. And be sure, sir, that the rescuer of our one most dearest and most prized shall be received with honor.” I promised; and he undertook to call upon me at nine o'clock that evening. And thus, within a day of my return to London, I found myself pledged to Italy; and a few hours later made one of a caucus of conspirators, poor and needy and inconsiderable enough to look at, but holding in their hands, after all, one or two of the strings which, being pulled at the ripe hour of time, changed the scene for more than one land in Europe. CHAPTER IX