in that quarter. He was in the
procession with you, I suppose?"

"No," said Cennini; "he is at his villa--went there three days ago."

Tito was settling his cap and glancing down at his splashed hose as if
he hardly heeded the answer. In reality he had obtained a much-desired
piece of information. He had at that moment in his scarsella a crushed
gold ring which he had engaged to deliver to Giannozzo Pucci. He had
received it from an envoy of Piero de' Medici, whom he had ridden out of
his way to meet at Certaldo on the Siena road. Since Pucci was not in
the town, he would send the ring by Fra Michele, a Carthusian lay
Brother in the service of the Mediceans, and the receipt of that sign
would bring Pucci back to hear the verbal part of Tito's mission.

"Behold him!" said Nello, flourishing his comb and pointing it at Tito,
"the handsomest scholar in the world or in the wolds, [`Del mondo o di
maremma'] now he has passed through my hands! A trifle thinner in the
face, though, than when he came in his first bloom to Florence--eh? and,
I vow, there are some lines just faintly hinting themselves about your
mouth, Messer Oratore! Ah, mind is an enemy to beauty! I myself was
thought beautiful by the women at one time--when I was in my
swaddling-bands. But now--oime! I carry my unwritten poems in cipher
on my face!"

Tito, laughing with the rest as Nello looked at himself tragically in
the hand-mirror, made a sign of farewell to the company generally, and
took his departure.

"I'm of our old Piero di Cosimo's mind," said Francesco Cei. "I don't
half like Melema. That trick of smiling gets stronger than ever--no
wonder he has lines about the mouth."

"He's too successful," said Macchiavelli, playfully. "I'm sure there's
something wrong about him, else he wouldn't have that secretaryship."

"He's an able man," said Cennini, in a tone of judicial fairness. "I
and my brother have always found him useful with our Greek sheets, and
he gives great satisfaction to the Ten. I like to see a young man work
his way upward by merit. And the secretary Scala, who befriended him
from the first, thinks highly of him still, I know."

"Doubtless," said a notary in the background. "He writes Scala's
official letters for him, or corrects them, and gets well paid for it
too."

"I wish Messer Bartolommeo would pay _me_ to doctor his gouty Latin,"
said Macchiavelli, with a shrug. "Did _he_ tell you about the pay, Ser
Cecc