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man?” said the Greek, rather impatiently.

    â€œI was coming to that,” said Nello. “Just now everybody of any public importance will be full of Lorenzo’s death, and a stranger may find it difficult to get any notice. But in the meantime, I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can help you to a chance of a favourable interview with Scala sooner than anybody else in Florence—worth seeing for his own sake too, to say nothing of his collections, or of his daughter Romola, who is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got quarrelsome and turned red.”

    â€œBut if this father of the beautiful Romola makes collections, why should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?”

    Nello shrugged his shoulders. “For two good reasons—want of sight to look at the gems, and want of money to pay for them. Our old Bardo de’ Bardi is so blind that he can see no more of his daughter than, as he says, a glimmering of something bright when she comes very near him: doubtless her golden hair, which, as Messer Luigi Pulci says of his Meridiana’s, ‘
raggia come stella per sereno
.’ Ah! here come some clients of mine, and I shouldn’t wonder if one of them could serve your turn about that ring.”

Chapter Four
First Impressions

    â€œGood-day, Messer Domenico,” said Nello to the foremost of the two visitors who entered the shop, while he nodded silently to the other. “You come as opportunely as cheese on macaroni. Ah! you are in haste— wish to be shaved without delay—
ecco
! And this is a morning when everyone has grave matter on his mind. Florence orphaned—the very pivot of Italy snatched away—heaven itself at a loss what to do next.
Lasso!
Well, well; the sun is nevertheless travelling on towards dinner-time again; and, as I was saying, you come like
cacio alla lasagna
[ 12 ]. For this young stranger was wishing for an honourable trader who would advance, him a sum on a certain ring of value, and if I had counted every goldsmith and money-lender in Florence on my fingers, I couldn’t have found a better name than Menico Cennini. Besides, he hath other ware in which you deal—Greek learning, and young eyes—a double implement which you printers are always in need of.”

    The grave elderly man, son of that Bernardo Cennini, who, twenty years before, having heard of the new process of printing carried on by Germans, had cast his own types in Florence, remained necessarily in lathered silence and passivity while Nello showered this talk in his ears, but turned a slow sideway gaze on the stranger.

    â€œThis fine young man has unlimited Greek, Latin, or Italian at your service,” continued Nello, fond of interpreting by very ample paraphrase. “He is as great a wonder of juvenile learning as Francesco Filelfo or our own incomparable Poliziano. A second Guarino, too, for he has had the misfortune to be shipwrecked, and has doubtless lost a store of precious manuscripts that might have contributed some correctness even to your correct editions, Domenico. Fortunately, he has rescued a few gems of rare value. His name is—you said your name, Messer, was—?”

    â€œTito Melema,” said the stranger, slipping the ring from his finger, and presenting it to Cennini, whom Nello, not less rapid with his razor than with his tongue, had now released from the shaving-cloth.

    Meanwhile the man who had entered the shop in company with the goldsmith—a tall figure, about fifty, with a short trimmed beard, wearing an old felt hat and a threadbare mantle—had kept his eye fixed on the Greek, and now said abruptly—

    â€œYoung man, I am painting a picture of Sinon deceiving old Priam, and I should be glad of your face for my Sinon, if you’d give me a sitting.”

    Tito Melema started and looked round with a pale astonishment in his face as if at a sudden accusation; but Nello left him no