I stared bedazzled from the display to him who stood as showman.  This was a handsome lad, seemingly no older than I, though taller, with a shock of black hair, rough and curly, and dark, smooth face, very boyish and pleasant.  He was dressed well, in bourgeois fashion; yet there was about him and his apparel something, I could not tell what, unfamiliar, different from us others.

He, meeting my eye, smiled in the friendliest way, like a child, and said, in Italian: 

“Good day to you, my little gentleman.”

I had still the uncertain feeling that I must be in a dream, for why should an Italian jeweller be displaying his treasures to me, a penniless page?  But the dream was amusing; I was in no haste to wake.

I knew my Italian well enough, for Monsieur’s confessor, the Father Francesco, who had followed him into exile, was Florentine; and as he always spoke his own tongue to Monsieur, and I was always at the duke’s heels, I picked up a deal of it.  After Monsieur’s going, the father, already a victim, poor man, to the falling-sickness, of which he died, stayed behind with us, and I found a pricking pleasure in talking with him in the speech he loved, of Monsieur’s Roman journey, of his exploits in the war of the Three Henrys.  Therefore the words came easily to my lips to answer this lad from over the Alps: 

“I give you good day, friend.”

He looked somewhat surprised and more than pleased, breaking at once into voluble speech: 

“The best of greetings to you, young sir.  Now, what can I sell you this fine day?  I have not been half a week in this big city of yours, yet already I have but one boxful of trinkets left.  They are noble, open-handed customers, these gallants of Paris.  I have not to show them my wares twice, I can tell you.  They know what key will unlock their fair mistresses’ hearts.  And now, what can I sell you, my little gentleman, to buy your sweetheart’s kisses?”

“Nay, I have no sweetheart,” I said, “and if I had, she would not wear these gauds.”

“She would if she could get them, then,” he retorted.  “Now, let me give you a bit of advice, my friend, for I see you are but young:  buy this gold chain of me, or this ring with this little dove on it,—­see, how cunningly wrought,—­and you’ll not lack long for a sweetheart.”

His words huffed me a bit, for he spoke as if he were vastly my senior.

“I want no sweetheart,” I returned with dignity, “to be bought with gold.”

“Nay,” he cried quickly, “but when your own valour and prowess have inflamed her with passion, you should be willing to reward her devotion and set at rest her suspense by a suitable gift.”

I looked at him uneasily, for I had a suspicion that he might be making fun of me.  But his countenance was as guileless as a kitten’s.

“Well, I tell you again I have no sweetheart and I want no sweetheart,” I said; “I have no time to bother with girls.”