He disliked Zorzi, but during the morning he had become convinced that the gifted young artist was a valuable piece of property, and not, as he had supposed, a clever flatterer who had wormed himself into old Beroviero's confidence.

A man who could make such things was worth much money to his master.

There were kings and princes, from the Pope to the Emperor, who would have given a round sum in gold for the beautiful ampulla of which only a heap of tiny fragments were now left to be swept away.
The two men brought Zorzi across the garden to the door of the laboratory.

Leaning heavily on the foreman he got the key out, and Giovanni turned it in the lock.

They would have taken him to the small inner room, to lay him on his pallet bed, but he would not go.
"The bench," he managed to say, indicating it with a nod of his head.
There was an old leathern pillow in the big chair.