ls for
the people: it is a shame and a sin that the treasury should be empty."

"I told him," said the smith, "to beware how he taxed the people. Poor
men won't be taxed. But as he does not follow my advice, he must take
the consequence--the horse runs from one hand, the halter remains in the
other."

"Take your advice, Cecco! I warrant me his stomach is too high for that
now. Why he is grown as proud as a pope."

"For all that, he is a great man," said one of the party. "He gave us
laws--he rid the Campagna of robbers--filled the streets with merchants,
and the shops with wares--defeated the boldest lords and fiercest
soldiery of Italy--"

"And now wants to tax the people!--that's all the thanks we get for
helping him," said the grumbling Cecco. "What would he have been without
us?--we that make, can unmake."

"But," continued the advocate, seeing that he had his supporters--"but
then he taxes us for our own liberties."

"Who strikes at them now?" asked the butcher.

"Why the Barons are daily mustering new strength at Marino."

"Marino is not Rome," said Luigi, the butcher. "Let's wait till they
come to our gates again--we know how to receive them. Though, for
the matter of that, I think we have had enough fighting--my two poor
brothers had each a stab too much for them. Why won't the Tribune, if he
be a great man, let us have peace? All we want now is quiet."

"Ah!" said a seller of horse-harness. "Let him make it up with the
Barons. They were good customers after all."

"For my part," said a merry-looking fellow, who had been a gravedigger
in bad times, and had now opened a stall of wares for the living, "I
could forgive him all, but bathing in the holy vase of porphyry."

"Ah, that was a bad job," said several, shaking their heads.

"And the knighthood was but a silly show, an' it were not for the wine
from the horse's nostrils--that had some sense in it."

"My masters," said Cecco, "the folly was in not beheading the Barons
when he had them all in the net; and so Messere Baroncelli says. (Ah,
Baroncelli is an honest man, and follows no half measures!) It was a
sort of treason to the people not to do so. Why, but for that, we should
never have lost so many tall fellows by the gate of San Lorenzo."

"True, true, it was a shame; some say the Barons bought him."

"And then," said another, "those poor Lords Colonna--boy and man--they
were the best of the family, save the Castello. I vow I pitied them."