"Stop!" cried Salvator. "Now--_now_ I understand the whole matter. It is that nephew's hatred for _me_, Antonio, which threatens to ruin everything. This nephew--this conceited, raw, boorish fellow--is one of those beasts which the Goddess of Fortune is overwhelming with her gifts in that picture of mine. That it was I who helped you to your Marianna--more or less indirectly, of course--is known not only to this nephew, but to every one in Rome. Season enough to persecute you, since they cannot specify anything against _me_. Even were it not for my affection for you, Antonio, as my best and dearest friend, I could not but stand by you if it were for nothing else than that it is I who have brought this mischance upon you. But, by all the saints, I do not see how I am to set about spoiling the game of your enemies." As he said this Salvator, who up to this point had been working away at a picture without interrupting himself, laid his brushes, palette and mahlstick down, got up from his easel, and, folding his arms across his breast, strode 'several times up and down, whilst Antonio, in deepest thought, contemplated the floor with fixed glance. Presently Salvator halted before him, and cried, laughing: "Antonio, there is nothing that _I_ can accomplish as against your powerful enemies; but there is _one_ who can, and will, help you; and that is Signor Formica." "Alas!" cried Antonio; "do not jest with an unfortunate, for whom there is no further salvation." "Still determined to despair?" cried Salvator, who had suddenly risen into the highest spirits. He laughed aloud: "I tell you, Antonio, friend Formica will help in Florence quite as well as he did in Rome. Go quietly home. Comfort your Marianna, and await the course of events quite tranquilly. All I expect of you is that you will be ready and prepared to do whatever Signor Formica--who happens to be here at this moment--may require of you." Antonio promised obedience with all his heart, hope and confidence at once beginning to glimmer up within him. Signor Pasquale was not a little astonished to receive a formal invitation from the Academia de' Percossi. "Ha!--indeed!" he cried. "One sees that Florence is the place where they know how to esteem merit; where a man endowed with such gifts as Signor Pasquale Capuzzi di Senegalia chances to possess, is properly appreciated."