CHAPTER XIV.

A Bandit Camp in the Mountains. The Wizard Admonishes His Rescuers With Subtle and Intricate Lessons on Ethics and Legality. Rude Replies. Shelyid Learns From La Contessa of Rascogne's Bold Rescue of Her and Il Conde From the Caravanserai Jail. She and Her Husband Have Decided to Join the Highwayman in a Life of Crime—She, From Love of the Scoundrel, Her Husband, From Love of the Rare Coins Which the Rogue's Trade Brings In Such Great Profusion. A Visit From the Big Banjo, Old Friend of Rascogne de Sevigneois. He is Seeking Material For a New Opera. The Big Banjo is Delighted With Rascogne's New ménage a trois, Finding in This Peculiar Arrangement Most Fertile Ground For a Popular Tragedy Filled With Great Emotion and the Littering of Many Corpses About the Stage At the Final Curtain. Rascogne Scoffs at the Big Banjo's Sublime Artistic Proposal, Advocating Instead the Dull Maintenance of a Most Pleasant Arrangement Satisfactory To All Parties Involved. The Big Banjo Approaches Il Conde With the Selfsame Libretto. Il Conde Demurs, Allowing That If He Were But Fifty Years Younger He Would Cheerfully Satisfy the Composer's Desires, For He Suspects the Highwayman of Taking Liberties With His Wife, Several Times a Day, In Fact, If He is Not Mistaken. Alas, At His Age A Man Has Energy For But One Passion. And There Is No Denying the Scoundrel Rascogne de Sevigneois Amasses Coins At a Prodigious Rate, Of Which All Those Of Value to the Numismatist Are Immediately Handed Over to Il Conde, Who Stands Fair to Become the World's Recognized Numismatist Supreme As a Result. Disgruntled At This Uniform Disrespect for the Necessities of Art, the Big Banjo Departs, Seeking More Tragic Sensibilities Elsewhere.