"For I, Caesar Basterga, have a brain.

And 'tis better a brain than thews and sinews, gold or lands, seeing that it has all these at command when I need them.

The fish is hooked.

It will be strange if I do not land him before the year is out.

But the bribe to his physician--it was a happy thought: a happy thought of this brain of Caesar Basterga, graduate of Padua, _viri valde periti, doctissimique_!".