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, etc., but we were careful to name no names, for the ears of the great are as large as their fortunes, and who knows when an unlucky word may drop into them? Truth, as we know, is at the bottom of a well, so we ran but little risk in abusing those of our masters who were the farthest off, especially that wretched Concini brought from Florence under the fat Queen's petticoats. Each had something to say against him, and with perfect justice, for if you catch two curs fighting over a bone, you beat your own dog, of course, but you half kill the stranger. However, I took the other side of the argument, partly for love of fair play, and partly out of perversity; so I said the dogs should be treated alike, that any one would suppose, to hear people talk, that all our evils were imported from Italy, whereas if the truth were known plenty of wicked things, and wicked people too, grow in our own garden. To this they all declared with one voice that a scamp from over the Alps was three times worse than one of us, and that three honest Italians were not equal to a third of a good Frenchman. I answered that man is pretty much the same animal wherever you find him, that I knew a good one when I saw him, and liked him, even if he came out of Italy, but this raised a perfect riot, and they all fell on me at once saying