ng to several well-filled purses which were on the table, said:

"'"You have behaved like a man, my good son. Here, take these three
thousand _zecchini_. If you want more, say so. But do me the favour
never to let me see your face again."

"'As he spoke those latter words, sparks blazed from the old man's
eyes, and the point of his nose grew even redder than it was before.
Antonio did not see the old man's drift, but he did not let that
circumstance much trouble him; so he took up, with some difficulty, the
purses, thinking he had earned them very fairly.

"'Shining in all the radiance of his newly-attained dignity, old
Falieri looked down next morning upon the populace, from one of the
windows of his palace, as they were crowding and thronging about,
practising warlike exercises and the carriage of weapons. Soon Bodoeri
who had been his most intimate friend from his earliest days--arrived;
and as Falieri was so absorbed in himself and in his grandeur that he
did not seem to notice him, he clapped his hands crying:

"'"Hey, hey, Falieri! what are the sublime ideas brooding in that head
of yours, now that it wears the Doge's cap?"

"'As if awakening from a dream, Falieri came to meet Bodoeri,
constraining himself to an appearance of friendliness. He felt that it
was to Bodoeri that he owed the cap in question, and his words had the
effect of being a slight reminder of that circumstance. But every
obligation pressed like an intolerable burden on his proud, overbearing
spirit, and as he could not turn upon the senior member of the Council,
and his own oldest friend, in the way in which he had sent Antonio
about his business, he constrained himself to a word or two of thanks,
and at once began to talk of the measures to be adopted against the
overweening enemy.

"'Bodoeri gave a significant smile. "That," he said, "and the other
matters demanded of you by the State, we will maturely consider and
discuss, in full Council, an hour or two hence. I have not come here,
at this early hour of the day, to discover, with you, the measures
necessary for the checking of the presumptuous Doria, or for the
bringing to reason of Ludwig the Hungarian, whose chops are watering
for our Dalmatian sea-ports again. No, Falieri; I have been thinking of
yourself only--and, in fact, of what perhaps you would not imagine I
had been thinking of--of your marriage."

"'"How could you think of such a thing?" said the Doge, in anger; and,
turni