vani turning down
their beds, the watch came rattling at the Sub-Prefect's door to report
a dead Jew in the Via della Gatta. Of all nights in the year, this, the
eve of the Glorious Ippolita's home-bringing, to be vexed by a dead Jew!
Messer Alessandro was exceedingly annoyed.

"Take your accursed Jew," he said to the lieutenant, "and stuff him
underground. I am busy, I am absorbed in work. When I have leisure I
will attend to him. You can dig him up again. And I take this
opportunity to tell you, Lieutenant, that your visit is most
inopportune. For six months you have brought me nothing of the sort, and
to-night, for example, you plump a Jew on my doorstep. Bury your beastly
Jew and leave me in peace."

"But, Excellency," stammered the Lieutenant, "your Excellency will see
that I have no control over the assassins of Padua. This Jew has not
died happily. There is a great hole under his ribs. He is scarcely cold
yet."

"That is soon remedied," said Alessandro; "put him in the ground."

"But, Excellency, a murdered Jew, a Jew in holes--"

"The Jews have been damned from the beginning of our dispensation,"
cried the Sub-Prefect in a rage. "Well, I add my malediction. I say,
Damn your Jew!" And he shut the door in the face of the watch.

The Lieutenant was hungry. If his chief could damn the Jews, so could
he.

"Corporal," says he, "I am going to supper. Do what you like with the
Jew, so long as you put him decently away when you have finished. Good
night."

The Corporal conferred with his men. Here was the Jew--what should they
do with him? One of the archers suggested a source of profit. He might
be shown in the wine-shops at a quattrino a head. Agreed. Off they set.

They showed him at the Codalunga--there were some low-browed hovels
there, as was usual about the gates: the Jew did well. Thence they
skirted the walls by the Riviera Santa Sofia, tried him at the outer
gate of the Carmine, worked their way from tavern to tavern, till they
came to the Vicolo Agnus Dei. It was a thousand pities Matteo was drunk
in his bed; he had quattrini enough and would not have missed the treat
for the world. Ippolita, whimpering in hers, wondered what the buzzing
and sliding of shoes in the street below could be about. She had
troubles of her own, poor girl, but she could not stand this. Up she
got: a single glance out of window was enough. She shuffled on a shift
and a petticoat, snatched a shawl, and tiptoed out. Annina, h