'What war?' asked a gentleman who was standing by. 'Nowadays we are in the happy state of having ten different wars in as many parts of the country.'

'I was serving under the Duke of Calabria, 'I replied.

'In that case, your battles were bloodless.'

'We came, we saw, and the enemy decamped,' said Matteo.

'And now, taking advantage of the peace, you have come to trouble the hearts of Forli,' said Donna Giulia.

'Who knows how useful your swords may not be here!' remarked a young man.

'Be quiet, Nicolo!' said another, and there was an awkward silence, during which Matteo and I looked at one another in surprise; and then everyone burst out talking, so that you could not hear what was said.

Matteo and I bowed ourselves away from Donna Giulia, and he took me to Checco, standing in a group of men.

'You have recovered from your fatigue?' he asked kindly.

'You have been travelling, Matteo?' said one of the company.

'Yes, we rode sixty miles yesterday,' he replied.

'Sixty miles on one horse; you must have good steeds and good imaginations,' said a big, heavy-looking man—an ugly, sallow-faced person, whom I hated at first sight.

'It was only once in a way, and we wanted to get home.'

'You could not have come faster if you had been running away from a battlefield,' said the man.

I thought him needlessly disagreeable, but I did not speak. Matteo had not cultivated the golden quality.

'You talk as one who has had experience,' he remarked, smiling in his most amiable manner.

I saw Checco frown at Matteo, while the bystanders looked on interestedly.

'I only said that,' added the man, shrugging his shoulders, 'because the Duke of Calabria is rather celebrated for his retreative tactics.'

I entertained a very great respect for the Duke, who had always been a kind and generous master to me.

'Perhaps you do not know very much about tactics,' I remarked as offensively as I could.

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