exchanging jokes with that sort of ostentatious laughter
which implies a desire to prove that the laughter is not mortified
though some people might suspect it. There were good reasons for such a
suspicion; for this broad-shouldered man with the red feather was Dolfo
Spini, leader of the Compagnacci, or Evil Companions--that is to say, of
all the dissolute young men belonging to the old aristocratic party,
enemies of the Mediceans, enemies of the popular government, but still
more bitter enemies of Savonarola. Dolfo Spini, heir of the great house
with the loggia, over the bridge of the Santa Trinita, had organised
these young men into an armed band, as sworn champions of extravagant
suppers and all the pleasant sins of the flesh, against reforming
pietists who threatened to make the world chaste and temperate to so
intolerable a degree that there would soon be no reason for living,
except the extreme unpleasantness of the alternative. Up to this very
morning he had been loudly declaring that Florence was given up to
famine and ruin entirely through its blind adherence to the advice of
the Frate, and that there could be no salvation for Florence but in
joining the League and driving the Frate out of the city--sending him to
Rome, in fact, whither he ought to have gone long ago in obedience to
the summons of the Pope. It was suspected, therefore, that Messer Dolfo
Spini's heart was not aglow with pure joy at the unexpected succours
which had come in apparent fulfilment of the Frate's prediction, and the
laughter, which was ringing out afresh as Tito joined the group at
Nello's door, did not serve to dissipate the suspicion. For leaning
against the door-post in the centre of the group was a close-shaven,
keen-eyed personage, named Niccolo Macchiavelli, who, young as he was,
had penetrated all the small secrets of egoism.

"Messer Dolfo's head," he was saying, "is more of a pumpkin than I
thought. I measure men's dulness by the devices they trust in for
deceiving others. Your dullest animal of all is he who grins and says
he doesn't mind just after he has had his shins kicked. If I were a
trifle duller, now," he went on, smiling as the circle opened to admit
Tito, "I should pretend to be fond of this Melema, who has got a
secretaryship that would exactly suit me--as if Latin ill-paid could
love better Latin that's better paid! Melema, you are a pestiferously
clever fellow, very much in my way, and I'm sorry to hear