The grating was too high for a man to look through it from outside. Aristarchi laid his knotty hands on the stone sill and pulled himself up till his face was against the grating. He now looked in and saw the porter sitting in his chair.
"Have you taken my message to your master?" inquired the Greek.
The porter looked up in surprise, which increased when he caught sight of the ferocious face of the speaker. But he was not to be intimidated so easily.
"Messer Angelo is not to be disturbed at his studies," he said. "If you wait till noon, perhaps he will come out to go to dinner."
"Perhaps!" repeated Aristarchi, still hanging by his hands. "Do you think I shall wait all day?"
"I do not know. That is your affair."
"Precisely. And I do not mean to wait."
"Then go away."
But the Greek had come on an exploring expedition in which he had nothing to lose. Hauling himself up a little higher, till his mouth was close to the grating, he hailed the house as he would have hailed a ship at sea, in a voice of thunder.
"Ahoy there! Is any one within? Ahoy! Ahoy!"