'True, Messer Baldassare; I have often reproached him. But painters, you know, are an unmanageable race.'
'Your Excellency speaks well,' said the Commissioner of the Salt Tax, who was burning to tell a tale of Leonardo; 'painters are impracticable folk. T'other day I came to his studio seeking an allegorical drawing for a marriage chest. "Is the master at home?" say I. "No," is the reply, "he hath gone forth, greatly busied, to measure the weight of the air." Truly, I thought the youth mocked me; but when I met Leonardo himself and taxed him with this folly, he confessed it, looking at me as if he thought I were a fool. Ladies, how like you the notion? and how many grains will you find in the spring zephyr?'
'I know worse of him than that,' said a young lord with a vulgar self-complacent face; 'he has invented a boat which travels up stream, yet without oars.'
'How doth it travel?'
'On wheels, by steam.'
'A boat with wheels? Nay, sir, this must be your invention of this moment!'
'I had it of Fra Luca Pacioli, who had seen the design. Leonardo conceives that in steam lies a force able to move large ships, let alone little boats.'
'You see! You see! Did I not tell you!' cried Madonna Ermellina, 'this is his necromancy, black magic pure and simple!'
''Tis not to be denied he is mad!' said the Duke with his urbane smile; 'for all that I wish him well. In his company I never weary!'