"What is the use of supposing the impossible?" Zorzi shrugged his
shoulders and went on scraping.

"Nothing is impossible in the Republic, except what the Ten are resolved
to hinder. And that is really impossible."

"The Ten will not make new laws nor repeal old ones for the benefit of
an unknown Dalmatian."

"Perhaps not," answered Giovanni. "But on the other hand there is no
very great penalty if you set up a furnace of your own. If you are
discovered, your furnace will be put out, and you may have to pay a
fine. It is no great matter. It is a civil offence, not a criminal one."

"What is it that you wish of me?" asked Zorzi with sudden directness.
"You are a busy man. You have not come here to pass a morning in idle
conversation with your father's assistant. You want something of me,
sir. Speak out plainly. If I can do what you wish, I will do it. If I
cannot, I will tell you so, frankly."

Giovanni was a little disconcerted by this speech. Excepting where money
was concerned directly, his intelligence was of the sort that easily
wastes its energy in futile cunning. He had not meant to reach the point
for a long time, if he had expected to reach it at all at a first
attempt.

"I like your straightforwardness," he said evasively. "But I do not
think your conversation idle. On the contrary, I find it highly
instructive."

"Indeed?" Zorzi laughed. "You do me much honour, sir! What have you
learned from me this morning?"

"What I wished to know," answered Giovanni with a change of tone, and
looking at him keenly.

Zorzi returned the glance, and the two men faced each other in silence
for a moment. Zorzi knew what Giovanni meant, as soon as the other had
spoken. The quick movement of surprise, which was the only indiscretion
of which Zorzi had been guilty, would have betrayed to any one that he
knew where the manuscript was, even if it were not in his immediate
keeping. His instinct was to take the offensive and accuse his visitor
of having laid a trap for him, but his caution prevailed.

"Whatever you may think that you have learned from me," he said,
"remember that I have told you nothing."

"Is it here, in this room?" asked Giovanni, not heeding his last speech,
and hoping to surprise him again.

But he was prepared now, and his face did not change as he replied.

"I cannot answer any questions," he said.

"You and my father hid it together," returned Giovanni. "When you had
buried it under the stone