erious side. I tell you we are being hurried to our
ruin. Here's this matter of draining the marshes at Pontesordo. Who's to
pay for that? The class that profits by it? Not by a long way. It's we
who drain the land, and the peasants are to live on it."

The visionary youth tossed back his hair. "But isn't that an inspiration
to you, sir?" he exclaimed. "Does not your heart dilate at the thought
of uplifting the condition of your down-trodden fellows?"

"My fellows? The peasantry my fellows?" cried the other. "I'd have you
know, my young master, that I come of a long and honourable line of
cloth-merchants, that have had their names on the Guild for two hundred
years and over. I've nothing to do with the peasantry, thank God!"

The youth had emptied another glass. "What?" he screamed. "You deny the
universal kinship of man? You disown your starving brothers? Proud
tyrant, remember the Bastille!" He burst into tears and began to quote
Alfieri.

"Well," said the fat man, turning a disgusted shoulder on this display
of emotion, "to my mind this business of draining Pontesordo is too much
like telling the Almighty what to do. If God made the land wet, what
right have we to dry it? Those that begin by meddling with the Creator's
works may end by laying hands on the Creator."

"You're right," said another. "There's no knowing where these
new-fangled notions may land us. For my part, I was rather taken by them
at first; but since I find that his Highness, to pay for all his good
works, is cutting down his household and throwing decent people out of a
job--like my own son, for instance, that was one of the under-steward's
boys at the palace--why, since then, I begin to see a little farther
into the game."

A shabby shrewd-looking fellow in a dirty coat and snuff-stained stock
had sauntered up to the table and stood listening with an amused smile.

"Ah," said the scribe, glancing up, "here's a thoroughgoing reformer,
who'll be asking us all to throw up our hats for the new charter."

The new-comer laughed contemptuously. "I?" he said. "God forbid! The new
charter's none of my making. It's only another dodge for getting round
the populace--for appearing to give them what they would rise up and
take if it were denied them any longer."

"Why, I thought you were hot for these reforms?" exclaimed the fat man
with surprise.

The other shrugged. "You might as well say I was in favour of having the
sun rise tomorrow. It would p