er it harboured), Angioletto walked briskly down
the street, shaping his course for the Borgo. He had been rounding a
plan even while he was announcing to Bellaroba that he had it cut and
dried; and now he was to execute it. True, it was a little extravagant,
depended too much, perhaps, upon other people's estimations of him
tallying with his own; but you will have found out by this time that the
youth was a realist. Ideas stood for things with him; and, as he said,
if he could not make them stand so to his auditory he was no poet. This
was a heresy he could not allow even supposititiously. The idea was
excellent; the thing, therefore, no less. Therefore he concluded that he
should not fail of his plan.

Beyond the Porta Angeli, in Borso's day, was to be found a huddle of
tenements--fungus-growth upon the city wall--single-storied,
single-roomed affairs, mostly the lodging of artificers in the lesser
crafts. Among them all there was but one of two floors, a substantial
red-brick little house with a most grandiloquent chimney-stack. And very
rightly it was so, for it belonged to the Court chimney-sweep.

On this eventful noon Sor Beppo, the sweep, was sitting on his doorstep
in the sun, eating an onion, one of many which reposed in a vinegar
bath on his knees. He was quite black, save where a three-days beard
lent a gleam of snow to chaps and chin; being toothless, he was an
indifferent performer upon the onion. But his hearing was as keen as his
eyesight. He caught Angioletto's vivacious heeltaps upon the flags, and
peered from burly brows at the smart little gentleman, cloaked,
feathered, and gaudy, who looked as suitable to his dusty surroundings
as a red poppy to a rubbish heap.

Angioletto, stopping before him, took off his scarlet cap with a
flourish.

"Well, young stabbing blade," said Beppo, "and who may you be?"

"Sir," replied the youth, "I am a poet." Beppo rubbed his shooting chin
with a noise like the scraping of nutmegs.

"Well," said he, "I'll not deny that it's a trade, and a lawful trade;
but for my part I sweep noblemen's chimneys and am proud of it. Shake
hands, poet."

They shook hands, with great cordiality on the poet's part.

"Sit down, poet," said Beppo.

Angioletto sat on the doorstep beside him without a word.

"Will you have an onion, my friend?" the old fellow went on to ask.

"Thank you, Sor Beppo, but I have already dined. Let me rather talk to
you while you finish your meal."