"Who calls? Who is there?" he answered.
"One moment, let me climb up these stairs," and I made my way to the landing, and held out my hand.
He took it in silence, but his grip was warm.
"Signore," he said after a moment, "I do not know your name; but whoever you are, Mathew Corte owes you much, and will some day show himself grateful."
"My name," I said, "for the present is Donati, and as for gratitude there is no need to speak of it."
As he mentioned his name, I remembered that there was a madman so called, who had come into notoriety years ago, by asserting that he had discovered the secret of prolonging life to a hundred and twenty years. He had, I heard, written a book in which this was fully described, and presented it to the Cibo pope, with the inscription, videbis dies Petri et ultra. Long after, I heard Cardinal Bembo tell, in his witty way, how this same Corte presented his book to three successive popes, ending with Innocent of Genoa, adding that he took care on each occasion to substitute a new title-page and dedication. "But," the cardinal was wont to add, "it is against the canon, for our Lord the Pope to go in any matter, even in life, beyond the Holy Apostle, and therefore, no doubt, the worthy doctor's prescriptions were not followed. Such are the sacrifices the church has to make."
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
"Some days."
"And we have never met!"
"Ah! The place is like a rabbit-warren. There are hundreds here. But it is odd that I have never seen you."