," remarked Muscari, "I confess I prefer the Italian of the
past."

"That is your old mistake, Muscari," said the man in tweeds, shaking
his head; "and the mistake of Italy. In the sixteenth century we Tuscans
made the morning: we had the newest steel, the newest carving, the
newest chemistry. Why should we not now have the newest factories, the
newest motors, the newest finance--the newest clothes?"

"Because they are not worth having," answered Muscari. "You cannot make
Italians really progressive; they are too intelligent. Men who see the
short cut to good living will never go by the new elaborate roads."

"Well, to me Marconi, or D'Annunzio, is the star of Italy" said the
other. "That is why I have become a Futurist--and a courier."

"A courier!" cried Muscari, laughing. "Is that the last of your list of
trades? And whom are you conducting?"

"Oh, a man of the name of Harrogate, and his family, I believe."

"Not the banker in this hotel?" inquired the poet, with some eagerness.

"That's the man," answered the courier.

"Does it pay well?" asked the troubadour innocently.

"It will pay me," said Ezza, with a very enigmatic smile. "But I am a
rather curious sort of courier." Then, as if changing the subject, he
said abruptly: "He has a daughter--and a son."

"The daughter is divine," affirmed Muscari, "the father and son are, I
suppose, human. But granted his harmless qualities doesn't that banker
strike you as a splendid instance of my argument? Harrogate has millions
in his safes, and I have--the hole in my pocket. But you daren't
say--you can't say--that he's cleverer than I, or bolder than I, or even
more energetic. He's not clever, he's got eyes like blue buttons; he's
not energetic, he moves from chair to chair like a paralytic. He's a
conscientious, kindly old blockhead; but he's got money simply because
he collects money, as a boy collects stamps. You're too strong-minded
for business, Ezza. You won't get on. To be clever enough to get all
that money, one must be stupid enough to want it."

"I'm stupid enough for that," said Ezza gloomily. "But I should suggest
a suspension of your critique of the banker, for here he comes."

Mr Harrogate, the great financier, did indeed enter the room, but nobody
looked at him. He was a massive elderly man with a boiled blue eye and
faded grey-sandy moustaches; but for his heavy stoop he might have been
a colonel. He carried several unopened letters in his hand. H