Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from Orcana to the
Turret. Two or three of the Austrian Police loitering
with Bluphocks, an English vagabond, just in view of
the Turret.
Bluphocks.
So, that is your Pippa, the little girl who
passed us singing? Well, your Bishop's Intendant's
money shall be honestly earned:—now, don't make me
that sour face because I bring the Bishop's name into
the business; we know he can have nothing to do with
such horrors: we know that he is a saint and all that a
bishop should be, who is a great man beside.
Oh were
but every worm a maggot, Every fly a grig, Every bough
a Christmas faggot, Every tune a jig! In fact, I have
abjured all religions; but the last I inclined to, was the
Armenian: for I have travelled, do you see, and at
Koenigsberg, Prussia Improper (so styled because there's
a sort of bleak hungry sun there), you might remark over
a venerable house-porch, a certain Chaldee inscription;
and brief as it is, a mere glance at it used absolutely to
change the mood of every bearded passenger. In they
turned, one and all; the young and lightsome, with no
irreverent pause, the aged and decrepit, with a sensible
alacrity: 't was the Grand Rabbi's abode, in short.
Struck with curiosity, I lost no time in learning Syriac
—(these are vowels, you dogs,—follow my stick's end
in the mud—
Celarent, Darii, Ferio!) and one morning
presented myself, spelling-book in hand, a, b, c,—I
picked it out letter by letter, and what was the purport
of this miraculous posy? Some cherished legend of
the past, you'll say—“
How Moses hocus-pocussed Egypt's
land with fly and locust,”—or, “
How to Jonah sounded
harshish, Get thee up and go to Tarshish,”—or, “
How the
angel meeting Balaam, Straight his ass returned a salaam,”
In no wise! “
Shackabrack—Boach—somebody or other
—Isaach, Re-cei-ver, Pur-cha-ser and Ex-chan-ger of—
Stolen Goods!” So, talk to me of the religion of a
bishop! I have renounced all bishops save Bishop
Beveridge—mean to live so—and die—
As some Greek
dog-sage, dead and merry, Hellward bound in Charon's
wherry, With food for both worlds, under and upper,
Lupine-seed and Hecate's supper, And never an obolus . . .
(Though thanks to you, or this Intendant through you, or
this Bishop through his Intendant—I possess a burning
pocketful of
zwanzigers) . . . To pay the Stygian Ferry!
1st Policeman.
There is the girl, then; go and deserve
them the moment you have pointed out to us Signor
Luigi and his mother.
[To the rest.]
I have been noticing
a house yonder, this long while: not a shutter unclosed
since morning!
2nd Policeman.
Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns the silkmills
here: he dozes by the hour, wakes up, sighs deeply,
says he should like to be Prince Metternich, and then
dozes again, after having bidden young Sebald, the
foreigner, set his wife to playing draughts. Never molest
such a household, they mean well.
Bluphocks.
Only, cannot you tell me something of this
little Pippa, I must have to do with? One could make
something of that name. Pippa—that is, short for Felippa
—rhyming to Panurge consults Hertrippa—Believest thou,
King Agrippa? Something might be done with that name.
2nd Policeman.
Put into rhyme that your head and a
ripe musk-melon would not be dear at half a zwanziger!
Leave this fooling, and look out; the afternoon's over or
nearly so.
3rd Policeman.
Where in this passport of Signor Luigi
does our Principal instruct you to watch him so narrowly?
There? What's there beside a simple signature? (That
English fool's busy watching.)
2nd Policeman.
Flourish all round—“Put all possible
obstacles in his way;” oblong dot at the end—“Detain
him till further advices reach you;” scratch at bottom—
“Send him back on pretence of some informality in the
above;” ink-spirt on right-hand side (which is the case
here)—“Arrest him at once.” Why and wherefore, I
don't concern myself, but my instructions amount to
this: if Signor Luigi leaves home to-night for Vienna
—well and good, the passport deposed with us for
our visa is really for his own use, they have misinformed
the Office, and he means well; but let him stay over
to-night—there has been the pretence we suspect, the
accounts of his corresponding and holding intelligence
with the Carbonari are correct, we arrest him at once,
to-morrow comes Venice, and presently Spielberg. Bluphocks
makes the signal, sure enough! That is he,
entering the turret with his mother, no doubt.
