"Come, then, under the walls," answered the other; and, leading the way, he conducted his friend through several of the low and narrow streets which abutted upon the defences, hardly meeting any one but a labourer and an old woman or two in miserable rags, seeking amongst the piles of rubbish, thrown out here and there in the open spaces between the walls and the houses, for anything that poverty could make valuable. At length they were obliged to turn into one of the larger streets; but ten steps therein brought them to a narrow doorway under one of the arcades, where they entered and mounted a long dirty stair. At the first landing was a door on the left, through which they passed into a little ante-room, where at a table was seated a young man dressed as a servant, but without badge or cognizance, as was usual with the domestics of great families at that period. If one might judge from his face, which was ugly enough to be funny, and funny enough to be beautiful--I do not love paradoxes, but I am driven into one--he was not a personage very much given to grave contemplations. Nevertheless, on the present occasion he was so seriously occupied with the piece of work he had in hand, that for an instant he did not observe the entrance of the two gentlemen we have mentioned. That piece of work was indeed a very important and elaborate one, at least in his opinion--namely, the cutting out, in small blocks of soft wood, a variety of grotesque heads, in which his inventive genius displayed itself by producing noses such as never were seen on any human countenance, eyes of every degree of obliquity, and chins, some retreating, as if afraid of the portentous nasal organ which overshadowed them, and some immeasurably protruded, as if to domineer over the mouth that yawned above. In truth he showed no small skill in sculpture, although his genius had taken rather an eccentric turn; and it was evident that he enjoyed his own performance very much, for his first salutation to his master was a loud laugh, as he contemplated the extraordinary physiognomy he had just carved. Then, awakening to the more sober realities of life, he started up, laying down the knife and wood upon the table, and saying, with a low bow, "Welcome to Padua, noble sir; better late than never; nothing's lost that is not at the bottom of the sea. It is a long lane that has never a turning. A man cannot be too late who has time enough." "Spare your proverbs, good Master Jute," replied his master, the stranger who had been waiting on the bridge; "I find that, notwithstanding all your promises of reformation and sobriety, you have been setting the whole town in an uproar."