"Remember what I told you about the second indentation of the acanthus," said the elder workman, without looking round; "a light, light hand--no holes in this work!"
Gianbattista murmured a sort of assent, which showed that the warning was not wanted. He was intent upon the delicate operation he was performing. Again the hammers beat irregularly.
"The more I think of it," said Marzio after the pause, "the more I am beside myself. To think that you and I should be nailed to our stools here, weekdays and feast-days, to finish a piece of work for a scoundrelly priest--"
"Well! What difference is there? He is a priest, I suppose--a creature who dresses himself up like a pulcinella before his altar--to--"
"Softly!" ejaculated the young man, looking round to see whether the door was closed.
"Why softly?" asked the other angrily, though his annoyance did not seem to communicate itself to the chisel he held in his hand, and which continued its work as delicately as though its master were humming a pastoral. "Why softly? An apoplexy on your softness! The papers speak as loudly as they please--why should I hold my tongue? A dog-butcher of a priest!"
"Well," answered Gianbattista in a meditative tone, as he selected another chisel, "he has the money to pay for what he orders. If he had not, we would not work for him, I suppose."
"If we had the money, you mean," retorted Marzio. "Why the devil should he have money rather than we? Why don't you answer? Why should he wear silk stockings--red silk stockings, the animal? Why should he want a silver ewer and basin to wash his hands at his mass? Why would not an earthen one do as well, such as I use? Why don't you answer? Eh?"
"Why should Prince Borghese live in a palace and keep scores of horses?" inquired the young man calmly.
"Ay--why should he? Is there any known reason why he should? Am I not a man as well as he? Are you not a man--you young donkey? I hate to think that we, who are artists, who can work when we are put to it, have to slave for such fellows as that--mumbling priests, bloated princes, a pack of fools who are incapable of an idea! An idea! What am I saying? Who have not the common intelligence of a cabbage-seller in the street! And look at the work we give them--the creation of our minds, the labour of our hands--"