the nose which manifest their
descent from the ancient Harpies, whose portraits you saw supporting the
arms of the Zecca. Shaking off old prejudices now, such a procession as
that of some four hundred passably ugly men carrying their tapers in
open daylight, Diogenes-fashion, as if they were looking for a lost
quattrino, would make a merry spectacle for the Feast of Fools."

"Blaspheme not against the usages of our city," said Pietro Cennini,
much offended. "There are new wits who think they see things more truly
because they stand on their heads to look at them, like tumblers and
mountebanks, instead of keeping the attitude of rational men. Doubtless
it makes little difference to Maestro Vaiano's monkeys whether they see
our Donatello's statue of Judith with their heads or their tails
uppermost."

"Your solemnity will allow some quarter to playful fancy, I hope," said
Cei, with a shrug, "else what becomes of the ancients, whose example you
scholars are bound to revere, Messer Pietro? Life was never anything
but a perpetual see-saw between gravity and jest."

"Keep your jest then till your end of the pole is uppermost," said
Cennini, still angry, "and that is not when the great bond of our
Republic is expressing itself in ancient symbols, without which the
vulgar would be conscious of nothing beyond their own petty wants of
back and stomach, and never rise to the sense of community in religion
and law. There has been no great people without processions, and the
man who thinks himself too wise to be moved by them to anything but
contempt, is like the puddle that was proud of standing alone while the
river rushed by."

No one said anything after this indignant burst of Cennini's till he
himself spoke again.

"Hark! the trumpets of the Signoria: now comes the last stage of the
show, Melema. That is our Gonfaloniere in the middle, in the starred
mantle, with the sword carried before him. Twenty years ago we used to
see our foreign Podesta, who was our judge in civil causes, walking on
his right-hand; but our Republic has been over-doctored by clever
_Medici_. That is the Proposto [Spokesman or Moderator] of the Priori
on the left; then come the other seven Priori; then all the other
magistracies and officials of our Republic. You see your patron the
Segretario?"

"There is Messer Bernardo del Nero also," said Tito; "his visage is a
fine and venerable one, though it has worn rather a petrifying look
towards