They say it did not please the people of his time either--he was too young to do anything of that sort--he was younger than you, Tista, only twenty-four years old when he made that statue." "Yes," answered Gianbattista, "I have heard you say so." He bent over his work, wondering what his master meant by this declaration of taste.
It seemed as though Marzio felt the awkwardness of the situation and was exerting himself to make conversation.

The idea was so strange that the apprentice could almost have laughed.

Marzio continued to soften the wax between his fingers, and to lay the pieces of it on the slate, pressing them roughly into the shape of a figure.
"Has Paolo been here ?" asked the master after another long pause.
Gianbattista merely shook his head to express a negative.
"Then he will come," continued Marzio.

"He will not leave me in peace all day, you may be sure." "What should he come for?
He never comes," said the young man.
"He will be afraid that I will have Lucia married before supper time.

I know him--and he knows me." "If he thinks that, he does not know you at all," answered Gianbattista quietly.
"Indeed ?" exclaimed Marzio, raising his voice to the ironical tone he usually affected when any one contradicted him.