will replace the Medici by the nymphs or the sirens, whichever you
prefer."

"No," said Cropole, "the will of my father must be carried out. My
father considered----"

"He considered the figures of the most importance," said Pittrino.

"He thought most of the legend," said Cropole.

"The proof of the importance in which he held the figures," said
Pittrino, "is that he desired they should be likenesses, and they are
so."

"Yes; but if they had not been so, who would have recognized them
without the legend? At the present day even, when the memory of the
Blaisois begins to be faint with regard to these two celebrated persons,
who would recognize Catherine and Mary without the words 'To the
Medici'?"

"But the figures?" said Pittrino, in despair; for he felt that young
Cropole was right. "I should not like to lose the fruit of my labor."

"And I should not wish you to be thrown into prison and myself into the
oubliettes."

"Let us efface 'Medici,'" said Pittrino, supplicatingly.

"No," replied Cropole, firmly. "I have got an idea, a sublime idea--your
picture shall appear, and my legend likewise. Does not 'Medici' mean
doctor, or physician, in Italian?"

"Yes, in the plural."

"Well, then, you shall order another sign-frame of the smith; you shall
paint six physicians, and write underneath 'Aux Medici' which makes a
very pretty play upon words."

"Six physicians! impossible! And the composition?" cried Pittrino.

"That is your business--but so it shall be--I insist upon it--it must be
so--my macaroni is burning."

This reasoning was peremptory--Pittrino obeyed. He composed the sign of
six physicians, with the legend; the echevin applauded and authorized
it.

The sign produced an extravagant success in the city, which proves that
poetry has always been in the wrong, before citizens, as Pittrino said.

Cropole, to make amends to his painter-in-ordinary, hung up the nymphs
of the preceding sign in his bedroom, which made Madame Cropole blush
every time she looked at it, when she was undressing at night.

This is the way in which the pointed-gable house got a sign; and this
is how the hostelry of the Medici, making a fortune, was found to be
enlarged by a quarter, as we have described. And this is how there was
at Blois a hostelry of that name, and had for painter-in-ordinary Master
Pittrino.

CHAPTER 6. The Unknown.

Thus founded and recommended by its sign, the hostelry of Master Cropole