"You lie, you scoundrel, in your throat!" screamed the Capuzzi below, rising from his seat. "Silence!--sit down!" cried the audience; the women who were sitting near him dragged him down into his place. The stage-Capuzzi went on to say it was time, now, to come to matters of more importance. He wanted to give a large dinner the next day, and Pasquarello must set to work briskly to get together all the requirements. He drew out of his pocket a list of the most expensive and recherché dishes, and read it aloud; as each dish was mentioned, Pasquarello had to say how much it would cost, and the money was handed to him on the spot. "Pasquale!--idiotic fool!--madman!--spendthrift!--prodigal!" cried the Capuzzi below, in crescendo, after the mention of the several dishes, and grew more and more angry the higher the total bill for this most unheard-of of all dinners became. When at length the list was gone through, Pasquarello asked Signor Pasquale's reason for giving so grand a dinner; and Capuzzi (on the stage) replied: "To-morrow will be the happiest day of all my life. Let me tell you, my good Pasquarello, that to-morrow I celebrate the wedding-day, rich in blessings, of my dear niece Marianna. I am giving her hand to that fine young fellow, the greatest of all painters, Scacciati." Scarce had the Capuzzi on the stage uttered those words, than he of the audience, quite beside himself, and incapable of further self-control, sprang up, with all the fury of a demon in his face of fire, clenched both his fists at his counterfeit, and screamed out at him, in a yelling voice: "That you shall not!--that you shall never! you infernal scoundrel of a Pasquale! Will you defraud yourself of your own Marianna, you dog? Are you going to throw her at that diabolical rascal's head? The sweet Marianna--your life, your hope, your all-in-all? Ah, beware! Have a care, deluded blockhead! These fists shall beat you black and blue, and give you something else to think about than dinners and marriages." But the Capuzzi on the stage clenched _his_ fists too, and cried out in a similar fury, with the same yelling voice: "May all the devils enter your body! you cursed, senseless Pasquale! Abominable skinflint!--old amorous goose!--motley fool, with the cap and bells over your ears! Have a care of yourself, or I will blow the breath of life out of you! that the mean actions you want to father upon the shoulders of the good, honourable, upright Pasquale may be put an end to at last." To an accompaniment of the most furious curses and maledictions of the Capuzzi beneath, he on the stage proceeded to narrate one scurrilous story of him after another, finishing off by crying out: "Try if you dare, Pasquale--amorous old ape!--to interfere with the happiness of those two young people, destined for each other by heaven."