"O have done, gammer!" screamed Beresynth, reeling and already half asleep. "If you begin to talk about love, coz, I shall tumble into such a laughing convulsion that I shall not recover from it for this next three days. Love! that stupid word broke the neck of my famous master, Pietro. But for this tarantula-dance the great hawk-nose would still be sitting as professor at his lecturing desk, and tickling the young goslings with philosophy and wisdom as they perkt up their yellow beaks to catch the crumbs he dropt into them. Marry! old beldam, this monkey-trick of love, this Platonic drunkenness of the soul, was the only thing wanting to us, to me as well as you, and then the miracle of our heroic existence would have been quite perfect.... Well, goodbye, old dame; tomorrow night about this time I'll come to fetch you, and then we never part more." "Cousin," said Pancrazia, "goodbye, till we meet again. Since you came through my door, I have grown quite a different creature. We will make a royal housekeeping of it hereafter." "So we too have had our jubilee now!" stammered Beresynth, who was already standing in the street, and who reeled through the dark night to his lodging. * * * * * Antonio meanwhile had already been to prepare old Ambrosio and his wife, telling them he was now sure of finding out the hideous old woman again, and no doubt her daughter Crescentia also. The mother readily believed him; but the father persisted in his doubts. Even before the sun had set, the youth was again with his friend at the door of the wise Castalio. The latter met them smiling, and said: "Here, Antonio, take this paper: you will find noted down on it, in what street, in what house, you may meet with the old crone. When you have discovered her, you will no longer entertain any doubts about my science." "I am already convinced;" replied Antonio: "I was so even yesterday: you are the wisest of mortals, and by the help of your art will make me the happiest. I will go to seek for the old woman: and if Crescentia is not dead or lost, I shall carry her to the arms of her parents." Powerfully excited and full of expectation he was about to depart in haste; his hand was already on the door-knob; when a low timid knock was heard on the outside, accompanied by a hoarse coughing and a scraping of feet. "Who's there?" cried Castalio; and, when the friends opened the door, in came Beresynth, who immediately stationed himself in the middle of the room, and with sundry antick bows and writhings of his features, offered his services to the wise man. "Who are you?" exclaimed Castalio, who had changed colour, and pale and trembling had shrunk back a few steps. "A villain he is, the fiend!" cried Antonio: "a magician, whom we must put into the inquisition's hands. It is the accursed Beresynth himself, whose name, my honoured friend, you have already heard, and of whom I have told you."