made Vittoria sick could she but see it.

Though his business with Monna Vittoria was thus, and thus far, proved a
failure, Simone had another matter to attend to which yielded a more
successful issue. Messer Simone wished to ascertain how far his standing
in the city had been injured by recent events, and how far he might
count on the support of those that had always hitherto been reckoned as
his friends. As to the first horn of the dilemma, he really felt little
anxiety. There was never a man of all the men in the party of the
Yellows that could be found to utter disapproving word of a plan that
had promised to annihilate at a single stroke the majority of those that
were most important among their opponents. Some few, indeed, might be
inclined, on general patriotic grounds, to protest against a course of
action which slaughtered one's private foes--however commendable the
slaughter might be under ordinary circumstances--while engaged in
military operations against an enemy of the city, and under the very
eyes, as it were, of that enemy. But here Messer Simone had his
comfortable answer in reserve. The very wiping out of his private
enemies was to be an important factor in the later wiping out of the
public enemy. Was not Arezzo, deceived by this action of private
justice, to take Messer Griffo to her arms, only to find that she had
cuddled a cockatrice? Up to this point Messer Simone felt fairly sure of
himself and of his ground.

He received no goring from the second horn--nay, not so much as a prick
to break the skin. His friends were as plentiful, his friends were as
zealous as ever, as ready to serve Messer Simone with enthusiasm so long
as Messer Simone had the millions of his kinsmen and the bank behind
him. Simone made sure, and very sure, that a very respectable army would
rise behind him if he chose to cry his war-cry, and season that
utterance with the relish of the added words, "Death to the
Reds!"--words that were always in Simone's heart, and would now, as he
believed, be very soon upon his lips, to the discomfiture of his
adversaries. In a word, Messer Simone was ripe, and overripe, for a
breach of the peace, and could barely be persuaded to wait for
opportunity and a pretext. He did wait, however, and he soon got both.

With the next morning there came one to my abode asking to have speech
with me, and when I went to see who it was I found that my visitor was
none other than Messer Tommaso Severo, th