On a table before him lay an old-fashioned sword and hat, a mask, dice and dice-box, a portfolio, and an inkstand of silver curiously carved.
"Well, Mascari," said the prince, looking up towards his parasite, who stood by the embrasure of the deep-set barricadoed window,--"well! the Cardinal sleeps with his fathers.

I require comfort for the loss of so excellent a relation; and where a more dulcet voice than Viola Pisani's ?" "Is your Excellency serious?
So soon after the death of his Eminence ?" "It will be the less talked of, and I the less suspected.

Hast thou ascertained the name of the insolent who baffled us that night, and advised the Cardinal the next day ?" "Not yet." "Sapient Mascari! I will inform thee.

It was the strange Unknown." "The Signor Zanoni! Are you sure, my prince ?" "Mascari, yes.

There is a tone in that man's voice that I never can mistake; so clear, and so commanding, when I hear it I almost fancy there is such a thing as conscience.