slab of the chimney.

These two points accomplished, he went in search of the painter who was
to paint the sign; and he was soon found. He was an old Italian, a rival
of the Raphaels and the Caracci, but an unfortunate rival. He said he
was of the Venetian school, doubtless from his fondness for color. His
works, of which he had never sold one, attracted the eye at a distance
of a hundred paces; but they so formidably displeased the citizens, that
he had finished by painting no more.

He boasted of having painted a bath-room for Madame la Marechale
d'Ancre, and mourned over this chamber having been burnt at the time of
the marechal's disaster.

Cropoli, in his character of a compatriot, was indulgent towards
Pittrino, which was the name of the artist. Perhaps he had seen the
famous pictures of the bath-room. Be this as it may, he held in such
esteem, we may say in such friendship, the famous Pittrino, that he took
him in his own house.

Pittrino, grateful, and fed with macaroni, set about propagating the
reputation of this national dish, and from the time of its founder,
he had rendered, with his indefatigable tongue, signal services to the
house of Cropoli.

As he grew old he attached himself to the son as he had done to the
father, and by degrees became a kind of over-looker of a house in which
his remarkable integrity, his acknowledged sobriety, and a thousand
other virtues useless to enumerate, gave him an eternal place by the
fireside, with a right of inspection over the domestics. Besides this,
it was he who tasted the macaroni, to maintain the pure flavor of the
ancient tradition; and it must be allowed that he never permitted a
grain of pepper too much, or an atom of parmesan too little. His joy
was at its height on that day when called upon to share the secret of
Cropoli the younger, and to paint the famous sign.

He was seen at once rummaging with ardor in an old box, in which he
found some brushes, a little gnawed by the rats, but still passable;
some linseed-oil in a bottle, and a palette which had formerly belonged
to Bronzino, that _dieu de la pittoure_, as the ultramontane artist, in
his ever young enthusiasm, always called him.

Pittrino was puffed up with all the joy of a rehabilitation.

He did as Raphael had done--he changed his style, and painted, in
the fashion of Albani, two goddesses rather than two queens. These
illustrious ladies appeared so lovely on the sign,--they presented
to the a