"'To which Margutte answered with a sneer, I like the blue no better than the black, My faith consists alone in savoury cheer, In roasted capons, and in potent sack; But, above all, in famous gin and clear, Which often lays the Briton on his back, With lump of sugar, and with lymph from well, I drink it, and defy the fiends of hell.'" "He! he! he!" said the man in black; "that is more than Mezzofante could have done for a stanza of Byron." "A clever man," said I. "Who?" said the man in black. "Mezzofante di Bologna." "He! he! he!" said the man in black; "now I know that you are not a Gypsy, at least a soothsayer; no soothsayer would have said that--" "Why," said I, "does he not understand five-and-twenty tongues?" "O yes," said the man in black; "and five-and-twenty added to them; but--he! he! it was principally from him who is certainly the Prince of Philologists that I formed my opinion of the sect." "You ought to speak of him with more respect," said I; "I have heard say that he has done good service to your see." "O yes," said the man in black; "he has done good service to our see, that is, in his way; when the neophytes of the propaganda are to be examined in the several tongues in which they are destined to preach, he is appointed to question them, the questions being first written down for him, or else, he! he! he! Of course you know Napoleon's estimate of Mezzofante; he sent for the linguist from motives of curiosity, and after some discourse with him, told him that he might depart; then turning to some of his generals, he observed, 'Nous avons eu ici un exemple qu'un homme peut avoir beaucoup de paroles avec bien peu d'esprit.'" "You are ungrateful to him," said I; "well, perhaps, when he is dead and gone you will do him justice." "True," said the man in black; "when he is dead and gone, we intend to erect him a statue of wood, on the left-hand side of the door of the Vatican library." "Of wood?" said I. "He was the son of a carpenter, you know," said the man in black; "the figure will be of wood for no other reason, I assure you; he! he!" "You should place another statue on the right." "Perhaps we shall," said the man in black; "but we know of no one amongst the philologists of Italy, nor, indeed, of the other countries, inhabited by the faithful worthy, to sit parallel in effigy with our illustrissimo; when, indeed, we have conquered those regions of the perfidious by bringing the inhabitants thereof to the true faith, I have no doubt that we shall be able to select one worthy to bear him company, one whose statue shall be placed on the right hand of the library, in testimony of our joy at his conversion; for, as you know, 'There is more joy,' etc." "Wood?" said I. "I hope not," said the man in black; "no, if I be consulted as to the material for the statue, I should strongly recommend bronze."