This solemn declaration, which was made with suitable gesticulation, and an action of the countenance that was well adapted to prove the speaker’s sincerity, produced a corresponding effect on most of the listeners, who murmured their applause in a manner sufficiently significant to convince the patron he was not about to dispose of the difficulty, simply by virtue of fair words.  In this dilemma he bethought him of a plan of overcoming the scruples of all present, in which he was warmly seconded by the agent of the police, and to which, after the usual number of cavilling objections that were generated by distrust, heated blood, and the obstinacy of disputation, the other parties were finally induced to give their consent.  It was agreed that the examination should no longer be delayed, but that a species of deputation from the crowd might take their stand within the gate where all who passed would necessarily be subject to their scrutiny, and, in the event of their vigilance detecting the abhorred and proscribed Balthazar, that the patron should return his money to the headsman, and preclude him from forming one of a party that was so scrupulous of its association, and, apparently, with so little reason.  The Neapolitan, whose name was Pippo; one of the indigent scholars, for a century since learning was rather the auxiliary than the foe of superstition, and a certain Nicklaus Wagner, a fat Bernese, who was the owner of most of the cheeses in the bark, were the chosen of the multitude on this occasion.  The first owed his election to his vehemence and volubility, qualities that the ignoble vulgar are very apt to mistake for conviction and knowledge; the second to his silence and a demureness of air which pass with another class for the stillness of deep water; and the last to his substance, as a man of known wealth, an advantage which, in spite of all that alarmists predict on one side and enthusiasts affirm on the other, will always carry greater weight with those who are less fortunate in this respect, than is either reasonable or morally healthful, provided it is not abused by arrogance or by the assumption of very extravagant and oppressive privileges.  As a matter of course, these deputed guardians of the common rights were first obliged to submit their own papers to the eye of the Genevese.[1]

[Footnote 1:  As we have so often alluded to this examination, it may be well to explain, that the present system of gend’armerie and passports did not then prevail in Europe; taking their rise nearly a century later than that in which the events of this tale had place.  But Geneva was a small and exposed state, and the regulation to which there is reference here, was one of the provisions which were resorted to, from time to time in order to protect those liberties and that independence, of which its citizens were so unceasingly and so wisely jealous.]

The Neapolitan, than whom an archer knave, or one that had committed more petty wrongs, did not present