"Per Bacco," he said, "if you succeed in doing it, Messer Basterga----" "I shall do it," Basterga retorted, "if you do not spoil all with your drunken tricks!" Grio was silent a moment, sunk plainly in reflection.

Presently his bloodshot eyes began to travel respectfully and even timidly over the objects about him.

In truth the room in which he found himself was worthy of inspection, for it was no common room, either in aspect or furnishing.

It boasted, it is true, none of the weird properties, the skulls and corpse-lights, dead hands, and waxen masks with which the necromancer of that day sought to impress the vulgar mind.

But in place of these a multitude of objects, quaint, curious, or valuable, filled that half of the room which was farther from the fire-hearth.