"I was too much in love to take any notice of what seemed to me then mere trifles," replied Schinner. "But I was soon cured of that folly, for it was in the Venetian states--in Dalmatia--that I received a cruel lesson." "Can it be told?" asked Georges. "I know Dalmatia very well." "Well, if you have been there, you know that all the people at that end of the Adriatic are pirates, rovers, corsairs retired from business, as they haven't been hanged--" "Uscoques," said Georges. Hearing the right name given, the count, who had been sent by Napoleon on one occasion to the Illyrian provinces, turned his head and looked at Georges, so surprised was he. "The affair happened in that town where they make maraschino," continued Schinner, seeming to search for a name. "Zara," said Georges. "I've been there; it is on the coast." "You are right," said the painter. "I had gone there to look at the country, for I adore scenery. I've longed a score of times to paint landscape, which no one, as I think, understands but Mistigris, who will some day reproduce Hobbema, Ruysdael, Claude Lorrain, Poussin, and others." "But," exclaimed the count, "if he reproduces one of them won't that be enough?" "If you persist in interrupting, monsieur," said Oscar, "we shall never get on." "And Monsieur Schinner was not addressing himself to you in particular," added Georges. "'Tisn't polite to interrupt," said Mistigris, sententiously, "but we all do it, and conversation would lose a great deal if we didn't scatter little condiments while exchanging our reflections. Therefore, continue, agreeable old gentleman, to lecture us, if you like. It is done in the best society, and you know the proverb: 'we must 'owl with the wolves.'" "I had heard marvellous things of Dalmatia," resumed Schinner, "so I went there, leaving Mistigris in Venice at an inn--" "'Locanda,'" interposed Mistigris; "keep to the local color." "Zara is what is called a country town--"