"Good!" exclaimed Magnani, a young journeyman upholsterer, outspoken and full of animation, who lived next door to the Lavoratori family in the suburb. "Be a good comrade like your father, whom everybody loves, and you will be loved as he is. We have been told that, because you had studied painting at Rome, you were inclined to be a little conceited, and you certainly do go about the city in a coat that is hardly fitted for an artisan. You have a very pleasing face, to be sure, but people blame you for being ambitious." "Where would be the harm?" rejoined Michel, working industriously beside Magnani. "Who is not entitled to be ambitious?" "I like the frankness of your reply, but every man who wishes to be admired should begin by winning affection." "Am I hated, pray, in this country, where I have just arrived, and where I know no one as yet?" "It is your own country; you were born here, your family is well known here, and your father highly esteemed; and the very reason that everybody has their eyes fixed on you is that you have just arrived. People think you a comely fellow, well dressed and well built. So far as I am able to judge, you have talent, the figures you have sketched and colored up yonder are not mere vulgar daubs. Your father is proud of you, but that is no reason why you should be proud of yourself. You are still a child, you are several years younger than I; you have almost no beard on your chin; you have never had an opportunity to furnish proofs of courage and virtue. When you have suffered a little because of the hardships of your condition in life, without complaining, then we will forgive you for carrying your head high and swaying from your hips up as you cross the street, with your cap over one ear. Otherwise we shall tell you that you are trying to impose on us, and that if you are not an artisan, but an artist, you had better ride in a carriage and not look the young men of your own rank in the face; for, you see, your father is a workman like us; he has talent in his line, and it may be more difficult to paint flowers, fruit, and birds on a cornice than to hang draperies at a window and arrange colors to harmonize in furnishing a room. But the difference isn't so great that we are not cousins-german in trade. I do not think that I am any better than the carpenter or mason; why do you think yourself above me?" "I have no such thought," Michel replied; "God preserve me from it!" "In that case, why didn't you come to our artisans' ball last night? I know that your cousin Vincenzo wanted to bring you, and you refused." "Do not form a bad opinion of me for that, my friend; it may be that I am of a melancholy and unsociable temperament." "I don't believe it. Your face says the contrary. Forgive me for speaking to you without ceremony; it is because I like you that I reproach you in this way. But our carpet is all nailed here; we must go somewhere else."