The Silvio Pellico official, during these exasperating and tiresome hours, sometimes regretted not having simply succeeded his father.

He could see himself, in imagination, in the light little shop near the cathedral, with a magnifying-glass fixed in his eye, ready to inspect some farmer's old "turnip," and suspended over his bench thirty silver and gold watches left by farmers the week before, who would profit by the next market-day to come and get them, all going together with a merry tick.

It may be questioned whether a trade as low as this would have been fitting for a young man of education, a Bachelor of Arts, crammed with Greek roots and quotations, able to prove the existence of God, and to recite without hesitation the dates of the reigns of Nabonassar and of Nabopolassar.

This watch-maker, this simple artisan, understood modern genius better.

This modest shopkeeper acted according to the democratic law and followed the instinct of a noble and wise ambition.