ot the slightest ear for music," he answered. "I would much
rather learn something about business."

"It is less amusing," said Andrea Contini regretfully.

"But I am at your service. I will come to the office when work is over
and we will do the accounts together. You will learn in that way very
quickly."

"Thank you. I suppose we must have an office. It is necessary, is it
not?"

"Indispensable--a room, a garret--anything. A habitation, a legal
domicile, so to say."

"Where do you live, Signor Contini? Would not your lodging do?"

"I am afraid not, Signor Principe. At least not for the present. I am
not very well lodged and the stairs are badly lighted."

"Why not here, then?" asked Orsino, suddenly growing desperately
practical, for he felt unaccountably reluctant to hire an office in the
city.

"We should pay no rent," said Contini. "It is an idea. But the walls are
dry downstairs, and we only need a pavement, and plastering, and doors
and windows, and papering and some furniture to make one of the rooms
quite habitable. It is an idea, undoubtedly. Besides, it would give the
house an air of being inhabited, which is valuable."

"How long will all that take? A month or two?"

"About a week. It will be a little fresh, but if you are not rheumatic,
Signor Principe, we can try it."

"I am not rheumatic," laughed Orsino, who was pleased with the idea of
having his office on the spot, and apparently in the midst of a
wilderness. "And I suppose you really do understand architecture, Signor
Contini, though you do play the fiddle."

In this exceedingly sketchy way was the firm of Andrea Contini and
Company established and lodged, being at the time in a very shadowy
state, theoretically and practically, though it was destined to play a
more prominent part in affairs than either of the young partners
anticipated. Orsino discovered before long that his partner was a man of
skill and energy, and his spirits rose by degrees as the work began to
advance. Contini was restless, untiring and gifted, such a character as
Orsino had not yet met in his limited experience of the world. The man
seemed to understand his business to the smallest details and could show
the workmen how to mix mortar in the right proportions, or how to
strengthen a scaffolding at the weak point much better than the overseer
or the master builder. At the books he seemed to be infallible, and he
possessed, moreover, such a power of stating things c