t house, close under
the shadow of the great marble Campanile. (Considerations of space
compel me to curtail the usual gush about Arnolfo and Giotto.) This was
our office. When I had got a Tuscan painter to plant our flag in the
shape of a sign-board, I sailed forth into the street and inspected it
from outside with a swelling heart. It is true, the Tuscan painter's
unaccountable predilection for the rare spellings 'Scool' without an _h_
and 'Stenografy' with an _f_, somewhat damped my exuberant pride for the
moment; but I made him take the board back and correct his Italianate
English. As soon as all was fitted up with desk and tables we reposed
upon our laurels, and waited only for customers in shoals to pour in
upon us. _I_ called them 'customers'; Elsie maintained that we ought
rather to say 'clients.' Being by temperament averse to sectarianism, I
did not dispute the point with her.

We reposed on our laurels--in vain. Neither customers nor clients seemed
in any particular hurry to disturb our leisure.

I confess I took this ill. It was a rude awakening. I had begun to
regard myself as the special favourite of a fairy godmother; it
surprised me to find that any undertaking of mine did not succeed
immediately. However, reflecting that my fairy godmother's name was
really Enterprise, I recalled Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock's advice, and
advertised.

'There's one good thing about Florence, Elsie,' I said, just to keep up
her courage. 'When the customers _do_ come, they'll be interesting
people, and it will be interesting work. Artistic work, don't you
know--Fra Angelico, and Della Robbia, and all that sort of thing; or
else fresh light on Dante and Petrarch!'

'When they _do_ come, no doubt,' Elsie answered, dubiously. 'But do you
know, Brownie, it strikes me there isn't quite that literary stir and
ferment one might expect in Florence. Dante and Petrarch appear to be
dead. The distinguished authors fail to stream in upon us as one
imagined with manuscripts to copy.'

I affected an air of confidence--for I had sunk capital in the concern
(that's business-like--sunk capital!). 'Oh, we're a new firm,' I
assented, carelessly. 'Our enterprise is yet young. When cultivated
Florence learns we're here, cultivated Florence will invade us in its
thousands.'

But we sat in our office and bit our thumbs all day; the thousands
stopped at home. We had ample opportunities for making studies of the
decorative detail on the Campani