ht under his hand a round boss which was to become
the head of a cherub under his chisel, he rubbed his fingers over the
smooth silver, mechanically, while he contemplated the red wax model
before him. Then there was silence for a space, broken only by the
quick, irregular striking of the two little hammers upon the heads of
the chisels.

Maestro Marzio Pandolfi was a skilled workman and an artist. He was one
of the last of those workers in metals who once sent their masterpieces
from Rome to the great cathedrals of the world; one of the last of the
artistic descendants of Caradosso, of Benvenuto Cellini, of Claude
Ballin, and of all their successors; one of those men of rare talent who
unite the imagination of the artist with the executive skill of the
practised workman. They are hard to find nowadays. Of all the twenty
chisellers of various ages who hammered from morning till night in the
rooms outside, one only--Gianbattista Bordogni--had been thought worthy
by his master to share the privacy of the inner studio. The lad had
talent, said Maestro Marzio, and, what was more, the lad had
ideas--ideas about life, about the future of Italy, about the future of
the world's society. Marzio found in him a pupil, an artist and a
follower of his own political creed.

It was a small room in which they worked together. Plain wooden shelves
lined two of the walls from the floor to the ceiling. The third was
occupied by tables and a door, and in the fourth high grated windows
were situated, from which the clear light fell upon the long bench
before which the two men sat upon high stools. Upon the shelves were
numerous models in red wax, of chalices, monstrances, marvellous ewers
and embossed basins for the ablution of the priests' hands, crucifixes,
crowns, palm and olive branches--in a word, models of all those things
which pertain to the service and decoration of the church, and upon
which it has been the privilege of the silversmith to expend his art and
labour from time immemorial until the present day. There were some few
casts in plaster, but almost all were of that deep red, strong-smelling
wax which is the most fit medium for the temporary expression and study
of very fine and intricate designs. There is something in the very
colour which, to one acquainted with the art, suggests beautiful
fancies. It is the red of the Pompeian walls, and the rich tint seems to
call up the matchless traceries of the ancients. Old chiselle