arms to their full length, and then brought them round till his hands grasped Tito’s curls, and drew them out playfully. “What is it you want of your well-tamed Nello? For I perceive a coaxing sound in that soft strain of yours. Let me see the very needle’s eye of your desire, as the sublime poet says, that I may thread it.”
“That is but a tailor’s image of your sublime poet’s,” said Tito, still letting his fingers fall in a light dropping way on the strings. “But you have divined the reason of my affectionate impatience to see your eyes open. I want you to give me an extra touch of your art—not on my chin, no; but on the zazzera , which is as tangled as your Florentine politics. You have an adroit way of inserting your comb, which flatters the skin, and stirs the animal spirits agreeably in that region; and a little of your most delicate orange-scent would not lie amiss, for I am bound to the Scala palace, and am to present myself in radiant company. The young cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici is to be there, and he brings with him a certain young Bernardo Dovizi of Bibbiena, whose wit is so rapid that I see no way of out-rivalling it save by the scent of orange-blossoms.”
Nello had already seized and flourished his comb, and pushed Tito gently backward into the chair, wrapping the cloth round him.
“Never talk of rivalry, bel giovane mio : Bernardo Dovizi is a keen youngster, who will never carry a net out to catch the wind; but he has something of the same sharp-muzzled look as his brother Ser Piero, the weasel that Piero de’ Medici keeps at his beck to slip through small holes for him. No! you distance all rivals, and may soon touch the sky with your forefinger. They tell me you have even carried enough honey with you to sweeten the sour Messer Angelo; for he has pronounced you less of an ass than might have been expected, considering there is such a good understanding between you and the Secretary.”
“And between ourselves, Nello mio, that Messer Angelo has more genius and erudition than I can find in all the other Florentine scholars put