most respectable chins I have the honour of shaving. But young Messer Niccolò was saying here the other morning—and doubtless Francesco means the same thing—there is as wonderful a power of stretching in the meaning of visions as in Dido’s bull’s hide. It seems to me a dream may mean whatever comes after it. As our Franco Sacchetti says, a woman dreams overnight of a serpent biting her, breaks a drinking-cup the next day, and cries out, ‘Look you, I thought something would happen—it’s plain now what the serpent meant.’ ”
“But the Frate’s visions are not of that sort,” said Cronaca. “He not only says what will happen—that the Church will be scourged and renovated, and the heathens converted—he says it shall happen quickly. He is no slippery pretender who provides loopholes for himself, he is—”
“What is this? what is this?” exclaimed Nello, jumping off the board, and putting his head out at the door. “Here are people streaming into the piazza, and shouting. Something must have happened in the Via Larga. Aha!” he burst forth with