"I think that you are right, father," Michel replied, with a smile; "to work quickly and well, one must combine presence of mind with an ardent will; he must have fever in his blood and a clear head. He must be able to think and act simultaneously. No, that power certainly is not given to everyone; and it is a painful thing to see so many feeble and incompetent organizations in proportion to the small number of placid and powerful ones. Alas! I am alarmed for myself, notwithstanding the praise you have just given me, for I rarely feel in that powerful and productive humor, and if I was in that humor just now, I owe it to your example." "No, no, Michel, no example is of any use to the impotent. Poor creatures! they do what they can, and that is an excellent reason why those who are stronger and more capable should make it their duty to relieve them. Do you not feel glad and proud to have done it?" "You are right, father! you can find the noble and praiseworthy aspect of my instincts better than I can myself. Ah! Pier-Angelo, you do not know how to read, and you have had me taught a thousand things that you do not know. And yet you are the light of my mind, and, at every step I take, I feel that you are helping to open a blind man's eyes." "That is well said!" cried honest Pier-Angelo, with artless joy. "I wish that could be written down. It reminded me of when the actors recite noble sentences on the stage. Let us see, how did you say it? repeat it for me. You called me by my name, as if I were not here, and you were thinking aloud of your old friend. Oh! I love fine words, that I do! _Pier-Angelo, you do not know how to write_--you began so. And then you compared yourself to a blind man whose light I was--I, a poor ignorant fellow, whose heart sees clear for you, Michel, none the less. I wish I could write poetry in pure Tuscan; but I only know how to improvise in my Sicilian dialect, in which, provided you rhyme in _i_ and _u_ you can always succeed in producing something that resembles poetry. If I could I would write a beautiful ballad about the love and modesty of a son who attributes to his old simpleton of a father all that he discovers about himself; a ballad! there is nothing in the world more perfect than a good ballad. I know a great many of them, but there are very few with which I am perfectly satisfied. I would like to be able to supply something that is lacking in them all. That reminds me that I shall have to sing to-night at supper. Hum! after swallowing such a lot of dust! but there will be plenty of good wine for the workmen to drink. Don't you mean to come? Evidently you don't like to drink with everybody. Perhaps you are right. They say that you are proud; but, on the other hand, you are sober and dignified. You must do what suits you. After all, it's of no use for you to talk, you will never be a simple mechanic like me, whatever you may do. You help me at my work now, and that is well done.