Checco came along at his usual pace, and it was quite evident that he fancied himself under espionage.  On two sides of the square a suspicious figure threaded its way in the line of shade not far behind him.  Checco passed the cafe looking at nothing but the huge hands he rubbed over and over.  The manifest agents of the polizia were nearing when Checco ran back, and began mouthing as in retort at something that had been spoken from the cafe as he shot by.  He made a gabbling appeal on either side, and addressed the pair of apparent mouchards, in what, if intelligible, should have been the language of earnest entreaty.  At the first word which the caffe was guilty of uttering, a fit of exasperation seized him, and the exciteable creature plucked at his hat and sent it whirling across the open-air tables right through the doorway.  Then, with a whine, he begged his followers to get his hat back for him.  They complied.

‘We only called “Illustrissimo!"’ said Agostino, as one of the men returned from the interior of the caffe hat in hand.

‘The Signori should have known better—­it is an idiot,’ the man replied.  He was a novice:  in daring to rebuke he betrayed his office.

Checco snatched his hat from his attentive friend grinning, and was away in a flash.  Thereupon the caffe laughed, and laughed with an abashing vehemence that disconcerted the spies.  They wavered in their choice of following Checco or not; one went a step forward, one pulled back; the loiterer hurried to rejoin his comrade, who was now for a retrograde movement, and standing together they swayed like two imperfectly jolly fellows, or ballet bandits, each plucking at the other, until at last the maddening laughter made them break, reciprocate cat-like hisses of abuse, and escape as they best could—­lamentable figures.

’It says well for Milan that the Tedeschi can scrape up nothing better from the gutters than rascals the like of those for their service,’ quoth Agostino.  ‘Eh, Signor Conte?’

‘That enclosure about La Vittoria’s name on the bills is correct,’ said the person addressed, in a low tone.  He turned and indicated one who followed from the interior of the caffe.

‘If Barto is to be trusted she is not safe,’ the latter remarked.  He produced a paper that had been secreted in Checco’s hat.  Under the date and the superscription of the Pope’s Mouth, ‘la Vittoria’ stood out in the ominous heavily-pencilled ring:  the initials of Barto Rizzo were in a corner.  Agostino began smoothing his beard.

‘He has discovered that she is not trustworthy,’ said Count Medole, a young man of a premature gravity and partial baldness, who spoke habitually with a forefinger pressed flat on his long pointed chin.

’Do you mean to tell me, Count Medole, that you attach importance to a communication of this sort?’ said Carlo, forcing an amazement to conceal his anger.

‘I do, Count Ammiani,’ returned the patrician conspirator.