es except to the highest
officials. The exceptional reverence was really exacted by the
splendour and grace of Tito's appearance, which made his black mantle,
with its gold fibula, look like a regal robe, and his ordinary black
velvet cap like an entirely exceptional head-dress. The hardening of
his cheeks and mouth, which was the chief change in his face since he
came to Florence, seemed to a superficial glance only to give his beauty
a more masculine character. He raised his own cap immediately and
said--

"Thanks, my friend, I merely wished, as you did, to see what is at the
foot of this placard--ah, it is as I expected. I had been informed that
the government permits any one who will, to subscribe his name as a
candidate to enter the fire--which is an act of liberality worthy of the
magnificent Signoria--reserving of course the right to make a selection.
And doubtless many believers will be eager to subscribe their names.
For what is it to enter the fire, to one whose faith is firm? A man is
afraid of the fire, because he believes it will burn him; but if he
believes the contrary?"--here Tito lifted his shoulders and made an
oratorical pause--"for which reason I have never been one to disbelieve
the Frate, when he has said that he would enter the fire to prove his
doctrine. For in his place, if you believed the fire would not burn
you, which of you, my friends, would not enter it as readily as you
would walk along the dry bed of the Mugnone?"

As Tito looked round him during this appeal, there was a change in some
of his audience very much like the change in an eager dog when he is
invited to smell something pungent. Since the question of burning was
becoming practical, it was not every one who would rashly commit himself
to any general view of the relation between faith and fire. The scene
might have been too much for a gravity less under command than Tito's.

"Then, Messer Segretario," said the young sculptor, "it seems to me Fra
Francesco is the greater hero, for he offers to enter the fire for the
truth, though he is sure the fire will burn him."

"I do not deny it," said Tito, blandly. "But if it turns out that Fra
Francesco is mistaken, he will have been burned for the wrong side, and
the Church has never reckoned such victims to be martyrs. We must
suspend our judgment until the trial has really taken place."

"It is true, Messer Segretario," said the shopkeeper, with subdued
impatience. "But