Mezzoni the Brigand — page 69: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. 61 ‘‘How stern and cold he looks.’’ ‘‘He has had enough experience to sour him.’’ ‘Yes; he has killed three foreigners, as well as young Verdi, in duels. Perhaps his conscience pricks him.”’’ ‘There were two Frenchmen and an English- man, eh?”’ oS V-CRoe ‘What was the trouble?” “Something at the gaming table.”’ ‘*Not women, then?”’ ‘‘No; Corrello wouldn’t fight about women; he’s too cold-blooded. He doesn’t care for them.”’ ‘“And yet,’ said his companion, ‘“‘I have heard that he was once very deeply in love, some dozen years ago, and that, with the exception of his want of property, he was then considered a very desirable and presentable fellow among the other sex. I for- get who she was, but folks thought that he was en- gaged at that time, until, to the general surprise, pith parents of the lady broke off the match.”’ ‘“‘T had never heard of this.’’ ‘Tt was so.”’ ‘“How long since?”’ ‘‘About twelve years.”’ ‘‘He must have outgrown that.’’ ‘‘T was one day where the subject was being dis- cussed,’’ continued the narrator, ‘“‘when one of the gentlemen attributed the eccentricity of Alberto Corrello to this very fact of his early disappointment in love, saying that he gave promise, aS a young man, of being a worthy scion of his once noble fam- ily, but suddenly all was changed, on his breaking off from the lady, and from that hour he went to the bad rapidly.’ Eomichbooks (ele)