“It is true that I am lame. Behold my foot. I can wear no boot, only this slipper of a giant. But as to waxing the floor, I can do it on my knees. The Signore is right, I only can execute that labor with fidelity. As to the injury--well, it was received in the service of the electric company that employs me. They have agreed to pay me a pension till I can go back to work. What matters it if the recovery is retarded? I draw my three francs a day, fresh and fresh. Do you think I would abandon the Signore at such a moment? Thou art new in this house. Who was it that prepared the old studio for the visit of her Majesty the Queen? But that was years ago before thy time!” From that moment I had no anxiety about the studio. Lorenzo, a Romagnolo, is a tireless worker, one of those Italians who have won for their countrymen the reputation of being the greatest workers in the world. “I wish I could buy him!” sighed J. when I told him Lorenzo had come. Monday was a busy day; the old Portuguese leather chair, that the Queen sat in on her last visit, was taken over to the studio, the best rugs, the two Japanese screens, and the Savonarola chair. A table was put near the door with some sheets of paper, pens and ink, in case anybody should want to write. At the last minute Brother Harry, who happened to be passing through Rome, gave a valuable hint: “Of course you are going to send that portrait of the mother to the studio?” “Why?” said J., “I never thought of it.” “Well, think of it now,” said Brother Harry. We thought of it, in the end, thought well of it. The day the exhibition opened the portrait of the old Chieftainess stood on an easel in the studio, ready to “receive” visitors with Diana. Agnese called me early Tuesday morning. “Signora, let us go to the studio to arrange the flowers,” she said. “With respect I should prefer it were done before Lorenzo comes. He is _prepotente_, some things he knows, I do not deny; but the flowers--ah, that is an art by itself!” At five minutes of ten the last touch had been given to the studio; J. and I stood waiting to receive the guests. “Suppose nobody comes!” The answer came quick and sharp; Lorenzo, dressed in his best, wearing one ordinary and one giant boot, his hair shining like the studio floor, threw open the door and announced with a beaming smile: “_Quel Signorino matto!_” That mad young man. “So you thought you would play this hand without me?” said a familiar voice. “Patsy!” Where had he come from? We last heard of him at the hacienda of our friend the Argentino, in South America. “Same old two-and-sixpence, always in at the death! There’s no end of a swell from the Celestial Empire on the stairs!” “His Excellency the Minister of China,” Lorenzo announced. The Chinese Minister, followed by his suite, walked into the studio on the stroke of ten, the first minute of the first day of the exhibition.