'Marco!' said Leonardo, with gentle reproach, ''twas but a week ago that I gave you thirty florins.'
'Thirty florins! Pr'ythee count it up. Of this thirty, four were a loan to Pacioli, two to that eternal sponge, Messer Galeotto Sacrobosco; five went to the body-snatchers for your anatomy studies; three for mending the glass and the stoves in the hot room for your reptiles and fishes; and six golden ducats went for that spotted devil——'
'Do you mean the camelopard?'
'Precisely; the camelopard. We have nothing to eat ourselves, but we feed that cursed beast. And whether we feed him or not, 'tis clear that he will die.'
'Never mind, Marco,' said Leonardo gently; 'if he die I will dissect him. The neck vertebræ of these animals are very curious.'
'The neck vertebræ! Oh, Master! Master! if you had not all these fancies for horses, and corpses, and giraffes, and fish, and every sort of beast, we might live as lords, asking alms of no one. Is not daily bread better than caprices?'
'Bread? Have I ever asked for anything better than bread? Oh, I know very well, Marco, you would like to see the death of all my creatures, though they cost me so much trouble and expense to obtain. They are indispensable to me—more so than you can imagine. You want to have everything your own way.'
Helpless injury trembled in the voice of the Master; and Marco maintained a sulky silence.
'But what is to become of us?' continued Leonardo. 'Already a famine of oats? We were never in such straits before.'
'We have always been in straits,' said Marco, 'and we always shall be. What can you expect? For a year we have not had a quattrino from the Duke. Messer Ambrogio Ferrari says daily, "to-morrow! to-morrow!" and to my thinking he but mocks us.'