"
"No, no, she's plain Piedmontese, I tell you. Her father was a physician
in Turin, and was driven out of the country for poisoning his patients
in order to watch their death-agonies."
"They say she's good to the poor, though," said another voice
doubtfully.
"Good to the poor? Ay, that's what they said of her father. All I know
is that she heard Stefano the weaver's lad had the falling sickness, and
she carried him a potion with her own hands, and the next day the child
was dead, and a Carmelite friar, who saw the phial he drank from, said
it was the same shape and size as one that was found in a witch's grave
when they were digging the foundations for the new monastery."
"Ladies and gentlemen," shrieked the quack, "what am I offered for a
drop of this priceless liquor?"
The listener turned aside and pushed his way toward the farther end of
the square. As he did so he ran against a merry-andrew who thrust a long
printed sheet in his hand.
"Buy my satirical ballads, ladies and gentlemen!" the fellow shouted.
"Two for a farthing, invented and written by an own cousin of the great
Pasquino of Rome! What will you have, sir? Here's the secret history of
a famous Prince's amours with an atheist--here's the true scandal of an
illustrious lady's necklace--two for a farthing...and my humblest thanks
to your excellency." He pocketed the coin, and the other, thrusting the
broadsheets beneath his cloak, pushed on to the nearest coffee-house.
Here every table was thronged, and the babble of talk so loud that the
stranger, hopeless of obtaining refreshment, pressed his way into the
remotest corner of the room and seated himself on an empty cask.
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