“I will do nothing of the kind!” exclaimed Orsino.  “I will do it myself.  I will learn how it is done.  I want occupation.”

“What an extraordinary wish!” Andrea Contini opened his eyes in real astonishment.

“Is it?  You work.  Why should not I?”

“I must, and you need not, Signor Principe,” observed the architect.  “But if you insist, then you had better get a clerk to explain the details to you at first.”

“Do you not understand them?  Can you not teach me?” asked Orsino, displeased with the idea of employing a third person.

“Oh yes—­I have been a clerk myself.  I should be too much honoured but—­the fact is, my spare time—­”

He hesitated and seemed reluctant to explain.

“What do you do with your spare time?” asked Orsino, suspecting some love affair.

“The fact is—­I play a second violin at one of the theatres—­and I give lessons on the mandolin, and sometimes I do copying work for my uncle who is a clerk in the Treasury.  You see, he is old, and his eyes are not as good as they were.”

Orsino began to think that his partner was a very odd person.  He could not help smiling at the enumeration of his architect’s secondary occupations.

“You are very fond of music, then?” he asked.

“Eh—­yes—­as one can be, without talent—­a little by necessity.  To be an architect one must have houses to build.  You see the baker died unexpectedly.  One must live somehow.”

“And could you not—­how shall I say?  Would you not be willing to give me lessons in book-keeping instead of teaching some one else to play the mandolin?”

“You would not care to learn the mandolin yourself, Signor Principe?  It is a very pretty instrument, especially for country parties, as well as for serenading.”

Orsino laughed.  He did not see himself in the character of a mandolinist.

“I have not the slightest ear for music,” he answered.  “I would much rather learn something about business.”

“It is less amusing,” said Andrea Contini regretfully.

“But I am at your service.  I will come to the office when work is over and we will do the accounts together.  You will learn in that way very quickly.”

“Thank you.  I suppose we must have an office.  It is necessary, is it not?”

“Indispensable—­a room, a garret—­anything.  A habitation, a legal domicile, so to say.”

“Where do you live, Signor Contini?  Would not your lodging do?”

“I am afraid not, Signor Principe.  At least not for the present.  I am not very well lodged and the stairs are badly lighted.”

“Why not here, then?” asked Orsino, suddenly growing desperately practical, for he felt unaccountably reluctant to hire an office in the city.

“We should pay no rent,” said Contini.  “It is an idea.  But the walls are dry downstairs, and we only need a pavement, and plastering, and doors and windows, and papering and some furniture to make one of the rooms quite habitable.  It is an idea, undoubtedly.  Besides, it would give the house an air of being inhabited, which is valuable.”