ground, having apparently carried with it
a manuscript volume of verse, which lay with its leaves crushed. In a
corner sat Sandro, playing a game at _mora_ by himself, and watching the
slow reply of his left fingers to the arithmetical demands of his right
with solemn-eyed interest.

Treading with the gentlest step, Tito snatched up the lute, and bending
over the barber, touched the strings lightly while he sang--

"Quant' e bella giovinezza,
Che si fugge tuttavia!
Chi vuol esser lieto sia,
Di doman non c'e certezza."

[Note 1.]

Nello was as easily awaked as a bird. The cap was off his eyes in an
instant, and he started up.

"Ah, my Apollino! I am somewhat late with my siesta on this hot day, it
seems. That comes of not going to sleep in the natural way, but taking
a potion of potent poesy. Hear you, how I am beginning to match my
words by the initial letter, like a Trovatore? That is one of my bad
symptoms: I am sorely afraid that the good wine of my understanding is
going to run off at the spigot of authorship, and I shall be left an
empty cask with an odour of dregs, like many another incomparable genius
of my acquaintance. What is it, my Orpheus?" here Nello stretched out
his arms to their full length, and then brought them round till his
hands grasped Tito's curls, and drew them out playfully. "What is it
you want of your well-tamed Nello? For I perceive a coaxing sound in
that soft strain of yours. Let me see the very needle's eye of your
desire, as the sublime poet says, that I may thread it."

"That is but a tailor's image of your sublime poet's," said Tito, still
letting his fingers fall in a light dropping way on the strings. "But
you have divined the reason of my affectionate impatience to see your
eyes open. I want, you to give me an extra touch of your art--not on my
chin, no; but on the zazzera, which is as tangled as your Florentine
politics. You have an adroit way of inserting your comb, which flatters
the skin, and stirs the animal spirits agreeably in that region; and a
little of your most delicate orange-scent would not lie amiss, for I am
bound to the Scala palace, and am to present myself in radiant company.
The young cardinal Giovanni de' Medici is to be there, and he brings
with him a certain young Bernardo Dovizi of Bibbiena, whose wit is so
rapid that I see no way of out-rivalling it save by the scent of
orange-blossoms."

Nello had already seized and flourished