“Your excellencies permit it?” asked the host.

“ Pardieu! ” cried Albert, “you are not a preacher, to remain standing!”

The host sat down, after having made each of them a respectful bow, which meant that he was ready to tell them all they wished to know concerning Luigi Vampa.

“You tell me,” said Franz, at the moment Signor Pastrini was about to open his mouth, “that you knew Luigi Vampa when he was a child⁠—he is still a young man, then?”

“A young man? he is only two-and-twenty;⁠—he will gain himself a reputation.”

“What do you think of that, Albert?⁠—at two-and-twenty to be thus famous?”

“Yes, and at his age, Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon, who have all made some noise in the world, were quite behind him.”