"On the first favourable opportunity which offered to speak with Don Thomaso on the subject, he informed him that he had dared aspire to the honour of becoming his brother-in-law; and that, as the price of such concession, not only would he abandon all claim to the money deposited in his hands, but that he would add to it a present of a thousand pistoles. The haughty Xaral coloured at this proposition, which awakened his slumbering pride; and in the excitation of the moment, could scarcely refrain from displaying the utter contempt in which he held the son of an industrious father. But, however insulted he felt at the temerity of Fabricio, he constrained himself; and, as respectfully as his nature would permit, replied that in a matter of such importance he could not at once determine; that he must consult Hippolita, and that it would even be necessary to summon a conclave of his noble relatives thereupon.
"With this answer he dismissed the gallant, and forthwith convoked a diet composed of certain hidalgos of his neighbourhood, with whom he claimed affinity, and who, like himself, were all infected with demophobia. With these he consulted, not as to whether they were of opinion that he should bestow his sister upon Fabricio, but on the most proper steps to be adopted in order sufficiently to punish the insolent young man, who, forgetful of the meanness of his origin, had dared pretend to the hand of a lady of the rank of Hippolita.
"As soon as he had exposed to the assembly this presumptuous demand,--as he mentioned the name of Fabricio, and uttered the words, 'Son of a husbandman,'--you should have seen how the eyes of all the nobles lighted up with fury. Each of them vomited fire and flame against the audacious groundling; and with one voice they all insisted, that his death beneath the cudgels of their domestics alone could expiate the vile affront he had offered to their family by the proposal of so scandalous an union. However, on mature consideration, the offended members of the diet agreed to spare the culprit's life; but, in order to teach him that first and far most useful knowledge--of himself, they resolved to play him such a trick as he should have reason to remember while he lived.
