"Ay, but a notary out of work, with his ink-bottle dry," said another bystander, very much out at elbows, "Better don a cowl at once, Ser Cioni; everybody will believe in your fasting."
The notary turned and left the group with a look of indignant contempt, disclosing, as he did so, the sallow but mild face of a short man who had been standing behind him, and whose bent shoulders told of some sedentary occupation.
"By San Giovanni, though," said the fat purchaser of leeks, with the air of a person rather shaken in his theories, "I'm not sure there isn't some truth in what Ser Cioni says. For I know I've good reason to find fault with the quattrini bianchi myself. Grumble, did he say? Suffocation! I should think we do grumble; and, let anybody say the word, I'll turn out into the piazza with the readiest, sooner than have our money altered in our hands as if the magistracy were so many necromancers. And it's true Lorenzo might have hindered such work if he would—and for the bull with the flaming horns, why, as Ser Cioni says, there may be many meanings to it, for the matter of that; it may have more to do with the taxes than we think. For when God above sends a sign, it's not to be supposed he'd have only one meaning."
"Spoken like an oracle, Goro!" said the barber. "Why, when we poor mortals can pack two or three meanings into one sentence, it were mere
