The girl drew away angrily, and the quack took up his harangue:—­“The same philter, ladies and gentlemen—­though in confessing it I betray a professional secret—­the same philter, I declare to you on the honour of a nobleman, whereby, in your own city, a lady no longer young and no way remarkable in looks or station, has captured and subjugated the affections of one so high, so exalted, so above all others in beauty, rank, wealth, power and dignities—­”

“Oh, oh, that’s the Duke!” sniggered a voice in the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I name no names!” cried the quack impressively.

“No need to,” retorted the voice.

“They do say, though, she gave him something to drink,” said a young woman to a youth in a clerk’s dress.  “The saying is she studied medicine with the Turks.”

“The Moors, you mean,” said the clerk with an air of superiority.

“Well, they say her mother was a Turkey slave and her father a murderer from the Sultan’s galleys.”

“No, no, she’s plain Piedmontese, I tell you.  Her father was a physician in Turin, and was driven out of the country for poisoning his patients in order to watch their death-agonies.”

“They say she’s good to the poor, though,” said another voice doubtfully.

“Good to the poor?  Ay, that’s what they said of her father.  All I know is that she heard Stefano the weaver’s lad had the falling sickness, and she carried him a potion with her own hands, and the next day the child was dead, and a Carmelite friar, who saw the phial he drank from, said it was the same shape and size as one that was found in a witch’s grave when they were digging the foundations for the new monastery.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” shrieked the quack, “what am I offered for a drop of this priceless liquor?”

The listener turned aside and pushed his way toward the farther end of the square.  As he did so he ran against a merry-andrew who thrust a long printed sheet in his hand.

“Buy my satirical ballads, ladies and gentlemen!” the fellow shouted.  “Two for a farthing, invented and written by an own cousin of the great Pasquino of Rome!  What will you have, sir?  Here’s the secret history of a famous Prince’s amours with an atheist—­here’s the true scandal of an illustrious lady’s necklace—­two for a farthing...and my humblest thanks to your excellency.”  He pocketed the coin, and the other, thrusting the broadsheets beneath his cloak, pushed on to the nearest coffee-house.

Here every table was thronged, and the babble of talk so loud that the stranger, hopeless of obtaining refreshment, pressed his way into the remotest corner of the room and seated himself on an empty cask.  At first he sat motionless, silently observing the crowd; then he drew forth the ballads and ran his eye over them.  He was still engaged in this study when his notice was attracted by a loud discussion going forward between a party of men at the nearest table.  The disputants, petty tradesman or artisans by their dress, had evidently been warmed by a good flagon of wine, and their tones were so lively that every word reached the listener on the cask.