“Ah, that’s it,” said the soft man. “it’s too much like the apothecary’s wife mixing his drugs for him.  Men of Roman lineage want no women to govern them!” He puffed himself out and thrust a hand in his bosom.  “Besides, gentlemen,” he added, dropping his voice and glancing cautiously about the room, “the saints are my witness I’m not superstitious—­but frankly, now, I don’t much fancy this business of the Virgin’s crown.”

“What do you mean?” asked a lean visionary-looking youth who had been drinking and listening.

“Why, sir, I needn’t say I’m the last man in Pianura to listen to women’s tattle; but my wife had it straight from Cino the barber, whose sister is portress of the Benedictines, that, two days since, one of the nuns foretold the whole business, precisely as it happened—­and what’s more, many that were in the Church this morning will tell you that they distinctly saw the blessed image raise both arms and tear the crown from her head.”

“H’m,” said the young man flippantly, “what became of the Bambino meanwhile, I wonder?”

The scribe shrugged his shoulders.  “We all know,” said he, “that Cino the barber lies like a christened Jew; but I’m not surprised the thing was known in advance, for I make no doubt the priests pulled the wires that brought down the crown.”

The fat man looked scandalised, and the first speaker waved the subject aside as unworthy of attention.

“Such tales are for women and monks,” he said impatiently.  “But the business has its serious 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.”