He conjured him to go to Hedwig and explain that the baroness had threatened to unmask him, and thus deprive him of his means of support,--he dared not put it otherwise,--unless he consented to sing for her and come to her as often as she pleased.

To explain, to propitiate, to smooth,--in a word, to reinstate Nino in her good opinion.
"Death of a dog!" exclaimed De Pretis; "you do not ask much! After you have allowed your lady-love, your inamorata, to catch you saying you are bound body and soul to another woman,--and such a woman! ye saints, what a beauty!--you ask me to go and set matters right! What the diavolo did you want to go and poke your nose into such a mousetrap for?
Via! I am a fool to have helped you at all." "Very likely," said Nino calmly.

"But meanwhile there are two of us, and perhaps I am the greater.

You will do what I ask, maestro; is it not true?
And it was not I who said it; it was the baroness." "The baroness--yes--and may the maledictions of the inferno overtake her," said De Pretis, casting up his eyes and feeling in his coat-tail pockets for his snuff-box.

Once, when Nino was younger, he filled Ercole's snuff-box with soot and pepper, so that the maestro had a black nose and sneezed all day.
What could Ercole do?
It was true that he had hitherto helped Nino.
Was he not bound to continue that assistance?
I suppose so; but if the whole affair had ended then, and this story with it, I would not have cared a button.