"Five thousand francs!" exclaimed Carnesecchi, with a scornful laugh. "With five thousand francs you had better play at the lottery. After all, if you lose, it is nothing."
"It is a great deal of money, Sor Gasparo," replied the chiseller. "When you have made it little by little—then you know what it means."
"Perhaps. But we have been standing here more than a quarter of an hour, and I have a client waiting for me about a big affair, an affair of millions."
"Bacchus!" ejaculated Marzio. "You are not in a hurry about the matter. Well, we can always talk, and I will not keep you."
"We might walk together, and say what we have to say."
"I am going to the Capitol," Marzio said, for he had been walking in that direction when they met.
"That is my way, too," answered the lawyer, forgetting that he had run into Marzio as he came down the street.
"Eh! That is lucky," remarked the artist with an almost imperceptible smile. "As I was saying," he continued, "five thousand francs is not the National Bank, but it is a very pretty little sum, especially when there is something more to be expected in the future."
"That depends on the future. But I do not call it a sum. Nothing under twenty thousand is a sum, properly speaking."
"Who has twenty thousand francs?" laughed Marzio, shrugging his shoulders with an incredulous look.