d while still
a few late guests were carousing at Messer Folco's tables, the
emissaries of Messer Simone were busy in Florence doing what they had to
do. Thus it was that so many of the fiery-hearted, fiery-headed youths
who had set their names in Messer Simone's Golden Book found, as they
returned gay and belated from Messer Folco's house, the summons awaiting
them--the summons that was not to be disobeyed, calling upon them at
once to prove their allegiance to the Company of Death and obey its
initial command. It is well to recollect that not one single man of all
the men so summoned failed to answer to his name.

It is in that regard, too, that I can scarcely do less than extend my
admiration to Messer Simone. For, in spite of the fact that he was a
very great villain, as he needs must be counted, being the enemy of our
party, he had in him so much as it were of the sovereign essence of
manhood that he could read aright men's tempers. And he knew very well
that such words as "patriotism" and "service of the sweet city" and
"honorable death for a great cause" are as so many flames that will set
the torch of a young man's heart alight. There was no generosity in
Messer Simone, yet--and this I think is the marvel--he could guess at
and count upon the generosity of others, and know that they would be
ready to do in an instant what he would never do nor never dream of
doing. He was not impulsive, he was not high-spirited, he was not
chivalrous; yet he could play upon the impulses, the high spirits, and
the chivalries of those whom he wished to destroy as dexterously as your
trained musician can play upon the strings of a lute. Of course it is
impossible not to admire such a cunning, however perverted the
application of that cunning may be. For there is many a rascal in the
broad world that has no wit to appreciate anything outside the compass
of his own inclinations, and takes it for granted that because he is a
rogue with base instincts, that can only be appealed to by base lures,
all other men are rogues likewise, and only basely answerable to some
base appeal.

Nor can I do otherwise than admire him for the ingenuity of the means by
which he sought to attain his end. It was in its way a masterpiece of
imagination, for one that throve upon banking, to conceive that scheme
of the Company of Death, with its trumpet-call to youth and courage and
the noble heart. It was excellently clever, too, of Messer Simone so to
engi