Pier-Angelo did not deign to reply; he simply shrugged his shoulders as he talked with his son, who was even higher up than he, shading the dress of a dancing-girl of Herculaneum, who swam in a blue canvas sky.
"There are enough figures, enough folds and shading!" cried the majordomo, beside himself. "Who in the devil will ever look up there, to see if there's anything wrong with your divinities in the firmament? The general effect is there, and that's all that is necessary. Come, come down, you old fox, or I'll shake the ladder you are standing on."
"If you touch my father's ladder," exclaimed young Michel, in a voice of thunder, "I will crush you with this chandelier. No jests of that sort, Signor Barbagallo, or you will be sorry for them."
"Let him talk, and go on with your work," said old Pier-Angelo, calmly. "Disputing takes time; don't waste your breath in empty words."
"Go down, father, go down," said the young man. "I am afraid that in this confusion they may give you a fall; I shall finish in a moment. Go down, I entreat you, if you expect me to retain my presence of mind."
Pier-Angelo descended the ladder slowly; not that he had lost, at sixty years of age, the strength and agility of youth, but in order to make the time that his son required to complete his work seem less long.
"What folly, what trifling!" said the majordomo to the old man. "You work over these temporary canvases as if they were to be exhibited in a museum, whereas they will be rolled up and stored in a garret to-morrow, and will have to be covered with different figures for the next fête! Who will thank you for it? Who will pay the slightest attention to them?"
"Not you; everybody knows that," retorted the young painter, contemptuously, from the top of his ladder.
"Hush, Michel, and attend to your work," said his father. "Everyone takes pride in doing the best he can," he added, looking at the steward. "There are some who take pride in claiming the credit of all our labors! Come! the upholsterers may begin. Give me a hammer and some nails, you fellows! As I have delayed you, it's no more than fair that I should help you."
"Always a good comrade!" said one of the upholsterers, handing the old painter some tools. "Come, Master Pier-Angelo, let art and trade lend each other a hand! One must be mad to get into trouble with you."