and
away jumped the no less terrified and indignant monkey, finding the
first resting-place for his claws on the horse's mane, which he used as
a sort of rope-ladder till he had fairly found his equilibrium, when he
continued to clutch it as a bridle. The horse wanted no spur under such
a rider, and, the already loosened bridle offering no resistance, darted
off across the piazza, with the monkey, clutching, grinning, and
blinking, on his neck.

"_Il cavallo! Il Diavolo_!" was now shouted on all sides by the idle
rascals who gathered from all quarters of the piazza, and was echoed in
tones of alarm by the stall-keepers, whose vested interests seemed in
some danger; while the doctor, out of his wits with confused terror at
the Devil, the possible stoning, and the escape of his horse, took to
his heels with spectacles on nose, lathered face, and the shaving-cloth
about his neck, crying--"Stop him! stop him! for a powder--a florin--
stop him for a florin!" while the lads, outstripping him, clapped their
hands and shouted encouragement to the runaway.

The _cerretano_, who had not bargained for the flight of his monkey
along with the horse, had caught up his petticoats with much celerity,
and showed a pair of parti-coloured hose above his contadina's shoes,
far in advance of the doctor. And away went the grotesque race up the
Corso degli Adimari--the horse with the singular jockey, the contadina
with the remarkable hose, and the doctor in lather and spectacles, with
furred mantle outflying.

It was a scene such as Florentines loved, from the potent and reverend
signor going to council in his lucco, down to the grinning youngster,
who felt himself master of all situations when his bag was filled with
smooth stones from the convenient dry bed of the torrent. The
grey-headed Domenico Cennini laughed no less heartily than the younger
men, and Nello was triumphantly secure of the general admiration.

"Aha!" he exclaimed, snapping his fingers when the first burst of
laughter was subsiding. "I have cleared my piazza of that unsavoury
fly-trap, _mi pare_. Maestro Tacco will no more come here again to sit
for patients than he will take to licking marble for his dinner."

"You are going towards the Piazza della Signoria, Messer Domenico," said
Macchiavelli. "I will go with you, and we shall perhaps see who has
deserved the _palio_ among these racers. Come, Melema, will you go
too?"

It had been precisely Tito's intenti