pportunity like a missionary among the too
light-minded heathens; "for a time of tribulation is coming, and the
scourge is at hand. And when the Church is purged of cardinals and
prelates who traffic in her inheritance that their hands may be full to
pay the price of blood and to satisfy their own lusts, the State will be
purged too--and Florence will be purged of men who love to see avarice
and lechery under the red hat and the mitre because it gives them the
screen of a more hellish vice than their own."

"Ay, as Goro's broad body would be a screen for my narrow person in case
of missiles," said Nello; "but if that excellent screen happened to
fall, I were stifled under it, surely enough. That is no bad image of
thine, Nanni--or, rather, of the Frate's; for I fancy there is no room
in the small cup of thy understanding for any other liquor than what he
pours into it."

"And it were well for thee, Nello," replied Nanni, "if thou couldst
empty thyself of thy scoffs and thy jests, and take in that liquor too.
The warning is ringing in the ears of all men: and it's no new story;
for the Abbot Joachim prophesied of the coming time three hundred years
ago, and now Fra Girolamo has got the message afresh. He has seen it in
a vision, even as the prophets of old: he has seen the sword hanging
from the sky."

"Ay, and thou wilt see it thyself, Nanni, if thou wilt stare upward long
enough," said Niccolo; "for that pitiable tailor's work of thine makes
thy noddle so overhang thy legs, that thy eyeballs can see nought above
the stitching-board but the roof of thy own skull."

The honest tailor bore the jest without bitterness, bent on convincing
his hearers of his doctrine rather than of his dignity. But Niccolo
gave him no opportunity for replying; for he turned away to the pursuit
of his market business, probably considering further dialogue as a
tinkling on cold iron.

"_Ebbene_" said the man with the hose round his neck, who had lately
migrated from another knot of talkers, "they are safest who cross
themselves and jest at nobody. Do you know that the Magnifico sent for
the Frate at the last, and couldn't die without his blessing?"

"Was it so--in truth?" said several voices. "Yes, yes--God will have
pardoned him."

"He died like the best of Christians."

"Never took his eyes from the holy crucifix."

"And the Frate will have given him his blessing?"

"Well, I know no more," said he of the hosen, "only Guccio