edicines, so he
keeps away from the doors of the druggists; and for this last week he
has taken to sitting in my piazza for two or three hours every day, and
making it a resort for asthmas and squalling bambini. It stirs my gall
to see the toad-faced quack fingering the greasy quattrini, or bagging a
pigeon in exchange for his pills and powders. But I'll put a few thorns
in his saddle, else I'm no Florentine. Laudamus! he is coming to be
shaved; that's what I've waited for. Messer Domenico, go not away:
wait; you shall see a rare bit of fooling, which I devised two days ago.
Here, Sandro!"

Nello whispered in the ear of Sandro, who rolled his solemn eyes,
nodded, and, following up these signs of understanding with a slow
smile, took to his heels with surprising rapidity.

"How is it with you, Maestro Tacco?" said Nello, as the doctor, with
difficulty, brought his horse's head round towards the barber's shop.
"That is a fine young horse of yours, but something raw in the mouth,
eh?"

"He is an accursed beast, the _vermocane_ seize him!" said Maestro
Tacco, with a burst of irritation, descending from his saddle and
fastening the old bridle, mended with string, to an iron staple in the
wall. "Nevertheless," he added, recollecting himself, "a sound beast
and a valuable, for one who wanted to purchase, and get a profit by
training him. I had him cheap."

"Rather too hard riding for a man who carries your weight of learning:
eh, Maestro?" said Nello. "You seem hot."

"Truly, I am likely to be hot," said the doctor, taking off his bonnet,
and giving to full view a bald low head and flat broad face, with high
ears, wide lipless mouth, round eyes, and deep arched lines above the
projecting eyebrows, which altogether made Nello's epithet "toad-faced"
dubiously complimentary to the blameless batrachian. "Riding from
Peretola, when the sun is high, is not the same thing as kicking your
heels on a bench in the shade, like your Florence doctors. Moreover, I
have had not a little pulling to get through the carts and mules into
the Mercato, to find out the husband of a certain Monna Ghita, who had
had a fatal seizure before I was called in; and if it had not been that
I had to demand my fees--"

"Monna Ghita!" said Nello, as the perspiring doctor interrupted himself
to rub his head and face. "Peace be with her angry soul! The Mercato
will want a whip the more if her tongue is laid to rest."

Tito, who had roused him