saying at this stage, laying one hose-clad leg across the knee of the other, and caressing his ankle, “I know of no man in Florence who can serve our party better than you. You see what most of our friends are: men who can no more hide their prejudices than a dog can hide the natural tone of his bark, or eke men whose political ties are so notorious, that they must always be objects of suspicion. Giannozzo here, and I, I flatter myself, are able to overcome that suspicion; we have that power of concealment and finesse, without which a rational cultivated man, instead of having any prerogative, is really at a disadvantage compared with a wild bull or a savage. But, except yourself, I know of no one else on whom we could rely for the necessary discretion.”

“Yes,” said Giannozzo Pucci, laying his hand on Tito’s shoulder, “the fact is, Tito mio, you can help us better than if you were Ulysses himself, for I am convinced that Ulysses often made himself disagreeable. To manage men one ought to have a sharp mind in a velvet sheath. And there is not a soul in Florence who could undertake a business like this journey to Rome, for example, with the same safety that you can. There is your scholarship, which may always be a pretext for such journeys; and what is better, there is your talent, which it would be harder to match than your scholarship. Niccolò Macchiavelli might have done for us if he had been on our side, but hardly so well. He is too much bitten with notions, and has not your power of fascination. All the worse for him. He has lost a great chance in life, and you have got it.”

“Yes,” said Tornabuoni, lowering his voice in a significant manner, “you have only to play your game well, Melema, and the future belongs to you. For the Medici, you may rely upon it, will keep a foot in Rome as well as in Florence, and the time may not be far-off when they will be able to make a finer career for their adherents even than they did in old days. Why shouldn’t you take orders some day? There’s a cardinal’s hat at the end of that road, and you would not be the first Greek who has worn that ornament.”

Tito laughed gaily. He was too acute not to measure Tornabuoni’s exaggerated flattery, but still the flattery had a pleasant flavour.

“My joints are not so stiff yet,” he said, “that