“Assuredly, Niccolò; else I should not have ventured to interrupt you when you are working out of hours, since I take that as a sign that your work is pressing.”
“I’ve been at the same work all day—making axes and spear-heads. And every fool that has passed my shop has put his pumpkin-head in to say, ‘Niccolò, wilt thou not come and see the King of France and his soldiers?’ and I’ve answered, ‘No: I don’t want to see their faces—I want to see their backs.’”
“Are you making arms for the citizens, then, Niccolò, that they may have something better than rusty scythes and spits in case of an uproar?”
“We shall see. Arms are good, and Florence is likely to want them. The Frate tells us we shall get Pisa again, and I hold with the Frate; but I should be glad to know how the promise is to be fulfilled, if we don’t get plenty of good weapons forged? The Frate sees a long way before him; that I believe. But he doesn’t see birds caught with winking at them, as some of our people try to make out. He sees sense, and not nonsense. But you’re a bit of a Medicean, Messer Tito Melema. Ebbene! so I’ve been myself in my time, before the cask began to run sour. What’s your business?”
“Simply to know the price of that fine coat of mail I saw hanging up here the other day. I want to buy it for a certain personage who needs a protection of that sort under his doublet.”
“Let him come and buy it himself, then,” said Niccolò, bluntly. “I’m rather nice about what I sell, and whom I sell to. I like to know who’s my customer.”
“I know your scruples, Niccolò. But that is only defensive armour: it can hurt nobody.”
“True: but it may make the man who wears it feel himself all the safer if he should want to hurt somebody. No, no; it’s not my own work; but it’s fine work of Maso of Brescia; I should be loth for it to cover the heart of a scoundrel. I must know who is to wear it.”
“Well, then, to be plain with you, Niccolò mio, I want it myself,” said Tito, knowing it was useless to try persuasion. “The fact is, I am likely to have a journey to take—and you know what journeying is in these times. You don’t suspect me of treason against the Republic?”
“No, I know no harm of you,” said Niccolò, in his blunt way again. “But have you the money to pay for the coat? For you’ve passed my shop often enough to know my sign: you’ve seen the burning account-books. I trust nobody. The price is twenty florins, and that’s because it’s second-hand. You’re not likely to have so much money with you. Let it be till to-morrow.”