"He," replied his friend, "always wanted to be coming forward in the light of a supernatural being: he was evermore labouring, consciously and purposely, to appear as a messenger from Heaven, and with counterfeit splendour to dazzle the ordinary sons of men. He delighted in pomp; he would indeed be condescending at times, but it was only to make the enormous distance between him and us more palpably felt. Did he not revel in the admiration which the nobles and citizens, the young and old, were all forced to pay him? But my present friend (for such he is, because he renders himself altogether my equal) has no wish to seem great and sublime: he smiles at the endeavours of so many men to do so, and considers this of itself as an assurance that there is something spurious and hollow to be concealed; since a clear consciousness of worth would only wish to pass for what it feels itself to be, and the wisest of mortals must after all acknowledge that he too, as well as the most ignorant vagabond, is merely a child of the dust." "You make me curious;" said Antonio: "so he knows both what is past and what is to come? the destinies of men? and could tell me how happy or unhappy the cast of my future life is to be? whether certain secret wishes can be accomplisht? Would he then be able to decipher and divine such parts of my history as are obscure even to myself?" "It is in this very thing that his wisdom lies," answered Alfonso with enthusiasm; "by means of letters and numbers, in the simplest and most harmless way, he finds out everything for which those wretches have to employ conjurations and charms and yells and screams and the agonies of death. Hence too you will find none of that odious magical apparatus about him, no crystals with spirits blockt up in them, no mirrors and skeletons, no incense, and no nauseous imps: he has all his stores in himself. I told him about you; and he found out by his calculations that I was quite sure of meeting you today at this hour on the steps of the Lateran church. And so it has turned out at the very instant he foretold." Antonio was desirous of becoming acquainted with this wonderfully gifted old man, in the hope of learning his destiny from him. They dined in a garden, and toward evening went back to the city. The streets had grown somewhat quieter; they could pursue their way with less hinderance. At dusk they came into the allies which pass close behind the tomb of Augustus. They walkt through a little garden; a friendly light glimmered upon them from the windows of a small house. They pulled the bell; the door opened; and full of the strangest and highest expectations Antonio entered with his friend into the hall. * * * * * Antonio was surprised at seeing before him a simple-mannered middle-sized young man, who from his appearance could not be much above thirty years old. With an unaffected air he greeted the youth on his entrance like an old acquaintance.