“Claims!  Thou liest!  What claims?”

“These!  Hast seen them before?  Ha! ha!” shouted Alberto, shaking a bundle of papers in the face of his rival.

“Allow me to examine them, if you please?” asked Signor Rodicaso, with forced calmness.

“No, you don’t,” was the response.  “But I’ll tell you what they are.  They are judgments to the extent of one hundred and seventy thousand florins—­dost hear? one hundred and seventy thousand florins—­against you, which I have bought for less than quarter price from Jinkerini Bros, No. 124 Rialto.  With them I offset the sum which this unhappy but excellent merchant” (pointing to the father) “owes you.  Here, sir; now you are released from yon monster’s clutches.” (Hands package of judgments to the father, who, overpowered by the scene, takes and holds them in dumb amazement.)

An expression of silent joy begins to steal over the face of Fidelia.  But her time for fainting had not yet come!

“Boy!” said Signor Rodicaso, with a composure that was perfectly wonderful, “there is another hand than thine in all this work.  Thou art but the poor tool and I despise thee!”

“Here is the hand!” exclaimed the uncle Bignolio, drawing out his leg from its seclusion, and bringing his whole body into full view.  “Dost know it?” He held up his right hand, to carry out the idea of the author.

“It is the hand of Bignolio the usurer,” said Signor Rodicaso, despondingly, seeing now that the game was clearly against him.

“Bignolio the usurer!” exclaimed the father, still wrapped in amazement.

“Bignolio the usurer!” murmured Fidelia, whose woman’s wit divined the mystery of his appearance.  But her time to faint had not yet come.

“Bignolio the usurer!” cried the notary, witnesses, and Bidette in chorus.

“Yes,” returned that gentleman; “Bignolio the usurer, who now is proud to claim the dearer title of ‘own uncle’ to his nephew Alberto.  That nephew he this day receives into his partnership, and proclaims his only heir.  Come to my arms, adopted son!”

Alberto flew to his uncle, and was silently embraced.  Even at this moment, sacred to the interchange of the noblest affections, several persons in the audience distinctly saw the uncle’s left eye wink over Alberto’s shoulder to Bidette, who responded to the unwelcome familiarity, this time, with an indignant frown.

The nephew gently uncoiled his uncle, and addressed himself to the father: 

“Respected sir, I have long loved your daughter, and am not totally unprepared to believe that she may, in some slight measure, reciprocate my affections.  I humbly solicit her hand in marriage.”

The father, with the characteristic decision of an old man of business, had already made up his mind.  Alberto, the young partner and heir of the rich usurer of Venice, would be a more manageable son-in-law than the middle-aged though wealthy Rodicaso.  The father said words to this effect in an “aside,” and then replied aloud: