"Cicero!" repeated Andrea, in astonishment--"he was a Roman, and an ancient, Capitano, and died before Inghilterra was known to the civilized world." Raoul perceived that he had reached too far, though he was not in absolute danger of losing his balance. Smiling, as in consideration of the other's provincial view of things, he rejoined, with an _aplomb_ that would have done credit to a politician, in an explanatory and half-apologetic tone. "Quite true, Signor Vice-governatore, as respects him you mention," he said; "but not true as respects Sir Cicero, my illustrious compatriot. Let me see--I do not think it is yet a century since our Cicero died. He was born in Devonshire"--this was the county in which Raoul had been imprisoned--"and must have died in Dublin. Si--now I remember, it _was_ in Dublin, that this virtuous and distinguished author yielded up his breath." To all this Andrea had nothing to say, for, half a century since, so great was the ignorance of civilized nations as related to such things, that one might have engrafted a Homer on the literature of England, in particular, without much risk of having the imposition detected. Signor Barrofaldi was not pleased to find that the barbarians were seizing on the Italian names, it is true; but he was fain to set the circumstance down to those very traces of barbarism which were the unavoidable fruits of their origin. As for supposing it possible that one who spoke with the ease and innocence of Raoul was inventing as he went along, it was an idea he was himself much too unpractised to entertain; and the very first thing he did on entering the palace was to make a memorandum which might lead him, at a leisure moment, to inquire into the nature of the writings and the general merits of Sir Cicero, the illustrious namesake of him of Rome. As soon as this little digression terminated he entered the palace, after again expressing the hope that "Sir Smees" would not fail to accompany "Sir Brown," in the visit which the functionary fully expected to receive from the latter, in the course of the next hour of two. The company now began to disperse, and Raoul was soon left to his own meditations, which just at that moment were anything but agreeable.