t to many my daughter, you young fool," continued Marzio,
not heeding the interruption. "You do. I will tell you what she is like.
My daughter--yes!--she has fine eyes, but she has the tongue of the--"

"Of her father," suggested Gianbattista, suddenly frowning.

"Yes--of her father, without her father's sense," cried Marzio angrily.
"With her eyes, those fine eyes!--those eyes!--you want to marry her. If
you wish to take her away, you may, and good riddance. I want no
daughter; there are too many women in the world already. They and the
priests do all the harm between them, because the priests know how to
think too well, and women never think at all. I wish you good luck of
your marriage and of your wife. If you were my son you would never have
thought of getting married. The mere idea of it made you send your
chisel through a cherub's eye last week and cost an hoax's time for
repairing. Is that the way to look at the great question of humanity?
Ah! if I were only a deputy in the Chambers, I would teach you the
philosophy of all that rubbish!"

"I thought you said the other day that you would not have any deputies
at all," observed the apprentice, playing with his hammer.

"Such as these are--no! A few of them I would put into the acid bath, as
I would a casting, to clean them before chiselling them down. They might
be good for something then. You must begin by knocking down, boy, if you
want to build up. You must knock down everything, raze the existing
system to the ground, and upon the place where it stood shall rise the
mighty temple of immortal liberty."

"And who will buy your chalices and monstrances under the new order of
things?" inquired Gianbattista coldly.

"The foreign market," returned Marzio. "Italy shall be herself again, as
she was in the days of Michael Angelo; of Leonardo, who died in the arms
of a king; of Cellini, who shot a prince from the walls of Saint Angelo.
Italy shall be great, shall monopolise the trade, the art, the greatness
of all creation!"

"A lucrative monopoly!" exclaimed the young man.

"Monopolies! There shall be no monopolies! The free artisan shall sell
what he can make and buy what he pleases. The priests shall be turned
out in chain gangs and build roads for our convenience, and the
superfluous females shall all be deported to the glorious colony of
Massowah! If I could but be absolute master of this country for a week I
could do much."

"I have no doubt of it," answe