The complacent smirk disappeared instantly from the old man's face, and all the good humour with which the wine had inspired him vanished. Gazing before him gloomily, he said, in a harsh voice: "See there the profound corruption of our sinful youth, who fasten their diabolical looks on children, detestable seducers that they are!--for I assure you, my dear sir, my niece Marianna is a mere child--a mere child scarce out of the nursery!" Salvator changed the subject. The old man recovered his composure; but when, with new sunshine in his face, he placed the full goblet to his lips, Salvator set on him again, with: "Tell me, my dear Signor, has your niece (that young lady of sixteen), the lovely Marianna, really that wonderful chestnut-brown hair, and those eyes, full of the rapture and bliss of Heaven, which we see in Antonio's Magdalene? That is what is everywhere said." "I can't say," cried the old man, in an angrier tone than before. "Don't let us refer to my niece; we can exchange words of more importance on the subject of the noble art to which your beautiful picture itself leads us." But as, whenever the old man took up the goblet and placed it to his lips to take a good draught, Salvator again began to speak of the beautiful Marianna, Pasquale at last sprung from his chair in fury, banged the goblet down on the table with such violence that it was nearly being broken, and cried in a screaming voice: "By the black, hellish Pluto, by all the Furies, you make the wine poison--poison to me. But I see how it is. You, and your fine Signor Antonio along with you, think you will make a fool of me; but you won't find it quite so easy. Pay me this instant the ten ducats you owe me, and I will leave you and your comrade, the beard-curler Antonio, to all the devils." Salvator cried out as if overcome by the most furious anger, "What! You dare to treat me in this manner in my own lodging? Pay you ten ducats for that rotten old box, out of which the worms have long since gnawed all the marrow, all the sound! Not ten, not five, not three, not a single ducat will I pay you for that spinett, which is scarcely worth a quattrino. Away with the crippled old thing," and therewith Salvator sent the little spinett spinning round and round with his foot, its strings giving out a loud wail of sorrow.