“Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?” inquired Eustachio.
“Better upon an egg than upon a quack!” retorted the priest.
But such was not the opinion of Eustachio himself, who privately conferred with Leonardo. Eustachio had a character, but no parts; Leonardo had parts, but no character.
“I see not why these fools should deride the oracle of the prophetess,” he said. “She would doubtless impress upon us that a dead master is in divers respects preferable to a living one.”
“Surely,” said Eustachio, “provided always that the servant is a man of exemplary character, and that he presumes not upon his lord’s withdrawal to another sphere, trusting thereby to commit malpractices with impunity, but doth, on the contrary, deport himself as ever in his great taskmaster’s eye.”
“Eustachio,” said Leonardo, with admiration, “it is the misery of Mantua that she hath no citizen who can act half as well as thou canst talk. I would fain have further discourse with thee.”
The two statesmen laid their heads together, and ere long the mob were crying, “A Virgil! a Virgil!”
The councillors reassembled and passed resolutions.
“But who shall be Regent?” inquired some one when Virgil had been elected unanimously.
“Who but we?” asked Eustachio and Leonardo. “Are we not the heads of the Virgilian party?”