I confess that I do not care to furnish a subject for the
gallows. Besides, your stratagem is really very ingenious and amusing--a
capital farce to play at the expense of cowardly travellers--who have
doubtless paid you well for the entertainment, eh? As an actor, I
appreciate the joke, and your ingenuity inclines me to be indulgent. You
are not simply and brutally a robber, and it would certainly be a pity
to cut short such a fine career."
"Alas!" answered Agostino mournfully, "no other career is open to me,
and I am more to be pitied than you suppose. I am the only one left of
a band formerly as complete as yours; the executioner has deprived me
of my brave comrades one by one, and now I am obliged to carry on my
operations entirely alone--dressing up my scarecrows, as your friend
calls them, and assuming different voices to make believe that I am
supported by a numerous company. Ah! mine is a sad fate; and then my
road is such a poor one--so few travellers come this way--and I have not
the means to purchase a better one. Every good road is owned by a band
of brigands, you know. I wish that I could get some honest work to do,
but that is hopeless; who would employ such a looking fellow as I am?
all in rags and tatters, worse than the poorest beggar.
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