Puckering up his mouth into the most winning of smiles, and blinking
his little grey eyes, the old gentleman replied, "I perceive, my good
sir, that you are yourself a clever musician, for you possess taste and
know how to value the deserving better than these ungrateful Romans.
Listen--listen--to the aria of all arias."

Therewith he rose to his feet, and, stretching himself up to his full
height, spread out his arms and closed both eyes, so that he looked
like a cock preparing to crow; and he at once began to screech in such
a way that the walls rang again, and Dame Caterina and her two
daughters soon came running in, fully under the impression that such
lamentable sounds must betoken some accident or other. At sight of the
crowing old gentleman they stopped on the threshold utterly astonished;
and thus they formed the audience of the incomparable musician Capuzzi.

Meanwhile Salvator, having picked up the spinet and thrown back the
lid, had taken his palette in hand, and in bold firm strokes had begun
on the lid of the instrument the most remarkable piece of painting that
ever was seen. The central idea was a scene from Cavalli's opera _Le
Nozze di Teti_, but there was a multitude of other personages mixed up
with it in the most fantastic way. Amongst them were the recognisable
features of Capuzzi, Antonio, Marianna (faithfully reproduced from
Antonio's picture), Salvator himself, Dame Caterina and her two
daughters,--and even the Pyramid Doctor was not wanting,--and all
grouped so intelligently, judiciously, and ingeniously, that Antonio
could not conceal his astonishment, both at the artist's intellectual
power as well as at his technique.

Meanwhile old Capuzzi had not been content with the aria which Salvator
had requested him to give, but, carried away by his musical madness, he
went on singing or rather screeching without intermission, working his
way through the most awful recitatives from one execrable scene to
another. He must have been going on for nearly two hours when he sank
back in his chair, breathless, and with his face as red as a cherry.
And just at this same time also Salvator had so far worked out his
sketch that the figures began to wear a look of vitality, and the
whole, viewed at a little distance, had the appearance of a finished
work.

"I have kept my word with respect to the spinet, my dear Signer
Pasquale," breathed Salvator in the old man's ear. He started up as if
awakening out of a