"You have immortal youth without the troublesome necessity of
periodically dying and rising again; on that stage of the world where we
mortals, untrained amateurs, improvise the drama of our lives, you have
always been behind the scenes, inspiring and stage-managing more history
and more poetry than has ever been written; without you Clio would never
have built herself a treasure-house or, if she had made one, her sisters
would have found in it nothing worth stealing; it is you who direct the
modulation from the old generation to the young; it is your voice that is
heard every Easter behind the bells and the music of the Gloria. And now
you ask for riches! No wonder we complain that you are unreasonable.
Can you not be satisfied and, in looking after the future of the race,
put a little more variety into its history and its poetry? Why do you so
often begin a story as comedy and end it as tragedy? It is unworthy of
you to play fast and loose with us; great poets do not do so. But there!
you are too young to know what conscience is, and I am afraid you are too
old to learn."

He replied that he was not accustomed to be talked to in this way and did
not know what I meant by it.

I said: "Very well, I will leave off preaching, and perhaps you will
allow me to conclude with a piece of advice that ought to be acceptable
to one whose ambition it is to become a millionaire. You cannot have
forgotten where you put your mother's head. Now, be a sensible boy for
once, run away and find it, take it to Dr. Orsi up there in the museum
and he will give you plenty of soldi for it--more than you can count, and
no questions asked about honour."

He laughed and said I seemed to take a good deal of interest in the
personal appearance of his mother who, he thought, could be trusted to
look after herself, and that so long as a woman's heart was in the right
place it did not much matter what she did with her head. Besides, even
if he were to find the head, he knew nothing about business and a
scientific man in a museum would be sure to get the better of him.

There is no resisting Cupid, so I let him think he had got the better of
me, gave him four soldi and added his coin to my collection of similar
pieces, while he frisked away back to his friends boasting of his
success, as Cupid will. He had not quite done with me, however, he came
once more to see whether I should be likely to give him a cigarette, but
a rough man caught him