"That's easier said than done; how are you going to start?"
"Fancy asking Galli that!
Of course he'd start by knocking the censor on the head."
"No, indeed, I shouldn't," said Galli stoutly. "You always think if a man comes from down south he must believe in no argument but cold steel."
"Well, what do you propose, then?
Sh! Attention, gentlemen!
Galli has a proposal to make."
The whole company, which had broken up into little knots of twos and threes, carrying on separate discussions, collected round the table to listen.
Galli raised his hands in expostulation.
"No, gentlemen, it is not a proposal; it is merely a suggestion.
It appears to me that there is a great practical danger in all this rejoicing over the new Pope.
People seem to think that, because he has struck out a new line and granted this amnesty, we have only to throw ourselves-- all of us, the whole of Italy--into his arms and he will carry us to the promised land.
Now, I am second to no one in admiration of the Pope's behaviour; the amnesty was a splendid action."
"I am sure His Holiness ought to feel flattered----" Grassini began contemptuously.
"There, Grassini, do let the man speak!"
Riccardo interrupted in his turn.
"It's a most extraordinary thing that you two never can keep from sparring like a cat and dog.
Get on, Galli!"
"What I wanted to say is this," continued the Neapolitan.
"The Holy Father, undoubtedly, is acting with the best intentions; but how far he will succeed in carrying his reforms is another question.
Just now it's smooth enough and, of course, the reactionists all over Italy will lie quiet for a month or two till the excitement about the amnesty blows over; but they are not likely to let the power be taken out of their hands without a fight, and my own belief is that before the winter is half over we shall have Jesuits and Gregorians and Sanfedists and all the rest of the crew about our ears, plotting and intriguing, and poisoning off everybody they can't bribe."
"That's likely enough."
"Very well, then; shall we wait here, meekly sending in petitions, till Lambruschini and his pack have persuaded the Grand Duke to put us bodily under Jesuit rule, with perhaps a few Austrian hussars to patrol the streets and keep us in order; or shall we forestall them and take advantage of their momentary discomfiture to strike the first blow?"
"Tell us first what blow you propose?"
"I would suggest that we start an organized propaganda and agitation against the Jesuits."
"A pamphleteering declaration of war, in fact?"
"Yes; exposing their intrigues, ferreting out their secrets, and calling upon the people to make common cause against them."
"But there are no Jesuits here to expose."
"Aren't there?
Wait three months and see how many we shall have.
It'll be too late to keep them out then."
"But really to rouse the town against the Jesuits one must speak plainly; and if you do that how will you evade the censorship?"
"I wouldn't evade it; I would defy it."
"You would print the pamphlets anonymously?
That's all very well, but the fact is, we have all seen enough of the clandestine press to know----"
"I did not mean that.
I would print the pamphlets openly, with our names and addresses, and let them prosecute us if they dare."
"The project is a perfectly mad one," Grassini exclaimed. "It is simply putting one's head into the lion's mouth out of sheer wantonness."
"Oh, you needn't be afraid!" Galli cut in sharply; "we shouldn't ask you to go to prison for our pamphlets."
"Hold your tongue, Galli!" said Riccardo.
"It's not a question of being afraid; we're all as ready as you are to go to prison if there's any good to be got by it, but it is childish to run into danger for nothing.
For my part, I have an amendment to the proposal to suggest."
"Well, what is it?"
"I think we might contrive, with care, to fight the Jesuits without coming into collision with the censorship."
"I don't see how you are going to manage it."
"I think that it is possible to clothe what one has to say in so roundabout a form that----"
"That the censorship won't understand it?
And then you'll expect every poor artisan and labourer to find out the meaning by the light of the ignorance and stupidity that are in him!
That doesn't sound very practicable."
"Martini, what do you think?" asked the professor, turning to a broad-shouldered man with a great brown beard, who was sitting beside him.