“When they reached the palace, they found it occupied by some of their relatives, and they had the utmost difficulty in making the latter understand who they were. For these good people seeing them to be in appearance so unlike what they were formerly, and in dress so shabby, flatly refused to believe that they were those very gentlemen of the Polo family whom they thought had been dead many years. So these three gentlemen,—this is a story I have often heard when I was a boy from the illustrious Messere Gasparo Malpiero, a gentleman of very great age and a senator of eminent virtue and integrity, whose house was on the canal of Santa Marianna, at the corner, over the mouth of the brook of S. Giovanni Crisostomo, and just midway among the buildings of the aforesaid Court of the Millions, and he said he had heard the story from his own father and grandfather, and from other old men among the neighbors,—the three gentlemen, I say, devised a scheme by which they should obtain at once from their kinsfolk the recognition they desired, and secure the honorable notice of the whole city; and this was it: “They invited a number of their kindred to an entertainment, which they purposely prepared with great state and splendor in their house. When the hour arrived for sitting down to table all three came from their chambers clothed in crimson satin, fashioned in long robes reaching to the ground, such as people in those days wore within doors. And when water for the hands had been served, and the guests were seated, they took off these robes and put on others of crimson damask, while the first suits were by their orders cut and divided among the servants. Then after partaking of some of the dishes they went out again and came back in robes of crimson velvet, and when they had again taken their seats, the second suits were divided as the first. When dinner was over they did the like with the robes of velvet, after they had put on dresses of the ordinary fashion worn by their guests. These proceedings caused much wonder and amazement among their relatives. But when the cloth had been drawn, and all the servants had been ordered to retire from the dining-hall, Messere Marco, the youngest of the three, rose from the table, and going into another chamber brought forth the three shabby dresses of coarse stuff which they had worn when they first arrived. Straightway they took sharp knives and began to rip open some of the seams and welts, and to take out of them many gems of the greatest value, such as rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and emeralds, all of which had been stitched up in these dresses in a manner so artful that nobody could have suspected the fact. For when they took leave of the Grand Khan they changed all the wealth which he had bestowed upon them for these rubies, emeralds, and other gems, being well aware of the impossibility of carrying with them so great an amount of gold on a journey so long and so difficult.