One night he sat in his closet of the Rocca, a little four-square room dug out of the armourer’s tower, and having a small oratory adjoining. This eyrie was so high up as to give a comfortable sense of security against surprise. There was but one window to it—just a deep wedge in the wall, piercing to the sheer flank of the tower. Sweet rushes carpeted the floor; the arras was pictured with dim, sacred subjects—Ambrosius in his cradle, with the swarm of bees settling on his honeyed lips; Ambrosius elected Bishop of Milan by the people; Ambrosius imposing penance on Theodosius for his massacre of the Thessalonicans—and the drowsy odours of a pastile, burning in the little purple shrine-lamp, robbed the air of its last freshness. Another lamp shone on a table, at which the Duke was seated somewhat preoccupied with a lute, and his tablets propped before him; while, motionless in the shadows opposite, stood the figure of the provost marshal, its fixed, unregarding eyes glinting in the flame. Intermittently Galeazzo strummed and murmured, self-communing, or addressing himself, between playfulness and abstraction, to the ear of Messer Jacopo:— ’_The lowliest of all Franciscans was St. Francis, meek mate of beasts and birds, boasting himself no peer of belted stars_.... Ha! a good line, Jacopo, a full significant line; I dare say it, our Parablist despite. Listen.’ (He chaunted the words in a harsh, uncertain voice, to an accompaniment as sorry.) ’Hear’st? Belted stars—those moon-ringed spheres the aristocracy of the night. Could Messer Bembo himself have better improvised? What think’st? Be frank.’ ’I think of improvising by book,’ said Jacopo, short and gruff. Galeazzo said ’Ha!’ again, like a snarl, and his brow contracted. ’Why, thou unconscionable old surly dog!’ he said—’why?’ Jacopo pointed to the tablets. ’Your saint asks no notes to _his_ piping. A’ sings like the birds.’ ’Now,’ answered his master, in a deep, offended tone, ’I’m in a mind to make _thee_ sing on a grill,—ay, and dance too. What, dolt! are not first thoughts first thoughts, however they may be pricked down? Look at this, I say; flatten thy bull nose on it. Is it not clean, untouched, unrevised? Spotless as when issued from Helicon? Beast! thou shalt call me, too, an improvisatore.’ The statue was silent. Galeazzo sat glaring and gnawing his fingers. ’Answer!’ he screeched suddenly. ’I will call thee one,’ said Jacopo obstinately, ’but not the best.’ The Duke fell back in his chair, then presently was muttering and strumming with his disengaged fingers on the table. ’No—not the best, not the best—not to rival heaven! Yet, perhaps, it should be the Duke’s privilege.’ The executioner laughed a little. ’The Duke should know how to take it.’ Galeazzo stopped short, quite vacant, staring at him. ’I’ve heard tell,’ said Jacopo, ’how one Nero, a fiddling emperor, came to be acknowledged first fiddle of all.’