Armed cap-a-pie, the professor ran out after him, keeping pretty close to his heels, with the intention of catching him just as he entered.  But the lady, being on the watch, opened the door suddenly for the pupil and shut it in her husband’s face.  The professor began to knock and to call out with a furious noise.  Extinguishing the light in a moment, the lady placed Bucciolo behind the door, and throwing her arms round her husband’s neck as he entered, motioned to her lover while thus she held his enemy to make his escape, and he, upon the husband’s rushing forward, slipped out from behind the door unperceived.  She then began to scream as loud as she could, “Help!  Help!  The professor has gone mad!  Will nobody help me?” for he was in an ungovernable rage, and she clung faster to him than before.  The neighbors running to her assistance and seeing the peaceable professor armed with deadly weapons, and his wife crying out, “Help, for the love of Heaven!—­too much study hath driven him mad!"{ they readily believed such to be the fact.  “Come, good signor,” they said, “what is all this about?  Try to compose yourself—­nay, do not struggle so hard, but let us help you to your couch.”  “How can I rest, think you,” he replied, “while this wicked woman harbours paramours in my house?  I saw him come in with my own eyes.”  “Wretch that I am!” cried his wife. “inquire of all my friends and neighbors whether any one of them ever saw anything the least unbecoming in my conduct.”  The whole party entreated the professor to lay such thoughts aside, for there was not a better lady breathing, or one who set a higher value upon her reputation.  “But how can that be,” said he, “when I saw him enter the house, and he is in it now?” in the meanwhile the lady’s two brothers arrived, when she began to weep bitterly, exclaiming, “O my dear brothers, my poor husband has gone mad, quite mad—­and he even says there is a man in the house.  I believe he would kill me if he could; but you know me too well to listen for a moment to such a story,” and she continued to weep.

The brothers then accosted the professor in no gentle terms:  “We are surprised, signor—­we are shocked to find that you dare bestow such epithets on our sister.  What can have led you, after living so amicably together, to bring these charges against her now?” “I can only tell you,” answered the professor, “that there is a man in the house.  I saw him enter.”  “Then come, and let us find him.  Show him to us,” retorted the incensed brothers, “for we will sift this matter to the bottom.  Show us the man, and we will then punish her in such a way as will satisfy you.”  One of the brothers, taking his sister aside, said, “First tell me, have you really got any one hidden in the house?  Tell the truth.”  “Heavens!” cried his sister, “I tell you, I would rather suffer death.  Should I be the first to bring a scandal on our house?  I wonder you are not ashamed to mention such a thing.”  Rejoiced to hear