Companion that
was his guest, the advantages were on the side of the stranger rather
than of the Florentine. Both were big men, both were strong men, both
were practised to the top in all manner of manly exercises. But while
there was a something gross about the greatness of Simone of the Bardi,
the bulk of the Englishman was so well proportioned and rarely adjusted
that a woman's first thought of him would be rather concerning his grace
than his size. While Messer Simone's face betrayed too plainly in its
ruddiness its owner's gratification of his appetites, Messer Griffo's
face carried a clean paleness that commended him to temperate eyes,
albeit he could, when he pleased, eat and drink as much as ever Messer
Simone.

Messer Simone's plan had one great merit to the mind of a foreigner
denied the lucidity of our Italian intelligence--it was adorably
simple. I can give it to you now in a nutshell as I learned it later,
not as I knew it then, for I did not know it then. Nobody knew it then
except Messer Simone of the one part, and Messer Griffo of the other
part, and one other who was not meant to know it or supposed to know it,
but who, in defence of special interests, first guessed at it, and then
made certain of it, with results that were far from satisfactory to
Messer Simone, though they proved in the end entirely pleasing to Messer
Griffo.

Here and now, in few words, was Messer Simone's plan. Messer Griffo was
to enter his, Simone's, service at what rate of pay he might, weighed in
the scale of fairness and with a proper calculation of market values,
demand. At least Messer Simone was not inclined to haggle, and the five
hundred lances would find him a good paymaster. In return for so many
stipulated florins, Messer Griffo was to render certain services to
Messer Simone--obvious services, and services that were less obvious,
but that were infinitely more important.

In the first place, the Free Companion was ostensibly to declare himself
Messer Simone's very good and zealous subaltern in the interests of the
city of Florence, and very especially in those interests which led her
to detest and honestly long to destroy the city of Arezzo. For this
proclaimed purpose he was to hold himself and his men in readiness to
march, when the time came, against Arezzo. This was the first page of
the treaty. But there was a second page of the treaty that, if it were
really written out, would have to be written in cipher. By i