“This frankness is thy friend,” added the chatelain, after he had nearly exhausted his questions, the answers having convinced him that there was no ground of suspicion, beyond the adventitious circumstance of their having been travellers on the same road as the deceased; “it has done much towards convincing me of thy innocence, and it is in general the best shield for those who have committed no crime.  I only marvel that one of thy habits should have had the sense to discover it!”

“Suffer me to tell you, Signor Castellano, or Podesta, whichever may be your eccellenza’s proper title, that you have not given Pippo credit for the wit he really hath.  It is true I live by throwing dust into men’s eyes, and by making others think the wrong is the right:  but mother Nature has given us all an insight into our own interests, and mine is quite clear enough to let me know when the true is better than the false.”

“Happy would it be if all had the same faculty and the same disposition to put it in use.”

“I shall not presume to teach one as wise and as experienced as yourself, eccellenza, but if an humble man might speak freely in this honorable presence, he would say that it is not common to meet with a fact without finding it a very near neighbor to a lie.  They pass for the wisest and the most virtuous who best know how to mix the two so artfully together, that, like the sweets we put upon healing bitters, the palatable may make the useful go down.  Such at least is the opinion of a poor street buffoon, who has no better claim to merit than having learned his art on the Mole and in the Toledo of Bellissima Napoli, which, as everybody knows, is a bit of heaven fallen upon earth!”

The fervor with which Pippo uttered the customary eulogium on the site of the ancient Parthenope was so natural and characteristic as to excite a smile in the judge, in spite of the solemn duty in which he was engaged, and it was believed to be an additional proof of the speaker’s innocence.  The chatelain then slowly recapitulated the history of the buffoon and the pilgrim to his companions, the purport of which was as follows.

Pippo naively admitted the debauch at Vevey, implicating the festivities of the day and the known frailty of the flesh as the two influencing causes.  Conrad, however, stood upon the purity of his life and the sacred character of his calling, justifying the company he kept on the respectable plea of necessity, and on that of the mortifications to which a pilgrimage should, of right, subject him who undertakes it.  They had quitted Vaud together as early as the evening of the day of the abbaye’s ceremonies, and, from that time to the moment of their arrival at the convent, had made a diligent use of their legs, in order to cross the Col before the snows should set in and render the passage dangerous.  They had been seen at Martigny, at Liddes, and St. Pierre, alone and at proper hours, making the best of their way