"You will make me angry," I said; and he answered, "It is your right."

"My right, is it?" said I. "If so, then, I command you."

"What!" he exclaimed. "You command me to be your brother? Dear sir!"

At this I became angry in good earnest, and showed it very plainly. He
was extremely patient under it, but equally firm. He said, "Don Francis,
your generosity has gone near to be your ruin, because, though it would
be good logic in Heaven, we are not there yet. You say that you and I
are equal. I say that we are nothing of the sort; and the proof would be
that if we started level from this door, and as we stand, in six months'
time you would remain a gentleman, and I the son of a shoemaker of
Cadorre. A gentleman you are, because you were born so. If you took me
up to your right hand, whether in this hovel or in the palace which is
yours by reason, still you would be the gentleman and I the cobbler's
son. And though I might prosper in business and become rich, and finding
you in want, might take you up to my right hand, call you my brother,
make you my heir--still you would be the gentleman condescending, and I
the cobbler's son making myself ridiculous. Your misfortunes--every one
of them--have arisen from the fact that you persist in treating your
inferiors as your equals. I should be sorry to tell you--it would be a
great impertinence--how far back into your career in Italy I can trace
this foible of yours."

He was no doubt in the right. A little more generosity on my part would
have told him so. I said that I could not convince him, and that I
should leave Virginia to do that.

"Oh, sir, it is she that has convinced me already," says he.