nius
(_una gran testa_), and I find thee utterly poor and unable to finish
the Strozzi lanterns.

"'Now I wish to do thee a service. Go, with these onions in thine
hand, and stand there in the street till the Lords Strozzi go forth,
and see thee with the vegetables, and then they will ask thee why
thou dost not finish the lanterns. And then thou shalt reply,
"Signori, because I must sell onions, not being able otherwise to
finish the lanterns, for truly all my art does not give me bread."
Then they will give thee money, and after that return to me.'

"So it happened as the old man said: the Signori Strozzi, when they
came forth, found Niccolo their artist selling onions, and gave him a
good sum of money, and with that he went back to the old man. And
they gave him a great sum indeed, for he was to make the lanterns all
of solid gold, so that the palace might be far finer than the Pitti.

"The old man said, 'Never mind paying me, but put an onion in your
pocket and study it.' And this he did, hence it comes that the tops
of the lanterns are like onion sprouts. And Niccolo seeing that he
lived in a hard and cruel world, in order to be even with it, made
the lanterns of iron, though the work which he put upon it was like
jewellery, so fine was it, and then gilded the iron and passed the
lanterns off on the Signori Strozzi for solid gold, and was soon
heard of as being very far away from Florence, in company with the
good old man who had put him up to the little game (_bel giuoco_).

"But people say that after all the Strozzi were not so badly cheated,
for those onion-top lanterns could not have been bought even in their
time for their weight in gold, and that they are worth much more
now."

It is needless to say that this ingenious tale owes its origin to the
iron lanterns having been at one time gilt. These famous works of art
have been copied far and wide: had the Strozzi family taken out and
renewed the copyright for design on them, they might have found that the
gold was a very good investment, especially in these times, when a thing
of beauty brings in cash for ever. One of the latest and prettiest
devices, to be seen in many shops, is a small iron night-lamp in
imitation of these Strozzi lanterns.

The im-moral, or at least the concluding sentence of the tale is, "_E
cosi Niccolo se ne fuggi a tasc