“That need not disturb you at all,” he said.  “You pass in as my convert.  All you have to do is to do nothing and keep your mouth shut.  If you cannot speak you cannot answer; that is good logic, I hope.  We will discuss our several affairs presently in the reasonable air of Tuscany.  I stifle in the Pope’s dominions.  You might say that there was not room enough for two such men.”  He blew out his shining cheeks till his eyes disappeared; he looked like a swollen tree-bole with a mossy growth dependent; then he deflated them with a bang, and shouted with laughter —­a single expression of delight, sharply reverberant—­and suddenly stopped.  “Poh! what a rattle you’ll think me,” he said.  “Come—­and remember that you are a deaf-mute.”

To get a thing granted it is no bad way to take it for granted.  This is what the Capuchin did.  I was young and he was old, I undecided and he perfectly clear in his intention.  There was little more—­even to my too charitable eyes—­in his favour, certainly not his looks.  He was a huge, straddling, positive kind of a fellow with an air of specious, bluff benevolence about him which gave way to examination.  He had a very ugly mouth under his beard, cut up sideways by the pressure of his long tooth to emerge; his eyes were small, greedy and near together; they looked different ways.  His nose was huge and glowing, broad-rooted as a tree and pitted with the smallpox.  On his left brow he had a savage scar.  His strength and determination were very extraordinary; I was to learn within a few weeks how strong he was, how ferocious and dangerous.  His age might be guessed at near sixty for all his vivacity, for at close quarters I could see unmistakably the senile arc in either eye, and, as the reader knows, his hair and beard were very white.  Debauchery may have left these marks upon him, but had not worn out his force.  That, at any rate, was still enough to resolve the irresolute Francis, an incurable believer in the native goodness of mankind, to obey him in this instance.  I am by nature pliant and easily led, and I have never been one for half measures.  Therefore I received upon my staff the Capuchin’s bundle in addition to my own, and followed my leader towards the guard-house, within sight of which, crooking his knees together under his frock, drawing in his shoulders, poking his head, the sturdy rogue reduced his apparent size and expression more materially than could be believed.  His calculating eyes grew weak and watery, he snivelled at the nose, drew his breath sharply as if it hurt him—­almost visibly shrank into himself.  I looked at him with amazement, but the officers seemed to know him very well.