“I would give six,” he said, lowering his voice to a still more confidential tone, and watching his companion eagerly.

“For six thousand gold lires,” said Zorzi, smiling, “I am quite sure that you could hire a ruffian to break in and cut the throat of the man who has charge of the manuscript.”

Giovanni’s face fell, but he quickly assumed an expression of righteous indignation.

“How can you dare to suggest that I would employ such means to rob my father?” he cried.

“If it were your intention to rob your father, sir, I cannot see that it would matter greatly what means you employed.  But I was only jesting, as you were when you said that you had the manuscript.  I did not expect that you would take literally what I said.”

“I see, I see,” answered Giovanni, accepting the means of escape Zorzi offered him.  “You were paying me back in my own coin!  Well, well!  It served me right, after all.  You have a ready wit.”

“I thought that if my conversation were not as instructive as you had hoped, I could at least try to make it amusing—­light, gay, witty!  I trust you will not take it ill.”

“Not I!” Giovanni tried to laugh.  “But what a wonderful thing is this human imagination of ours!  Now, as I talked of the secrets, I forgot that they were my father’s, they seemed almost within my grasp, I was ready to count out the gold, to count out six thousand gold lires.  Think of that!”

“They are worth it,” said Zorzi quietly.

“You should know best,” answered the other.  “There is no such glass as my father’s for lightness and strength.  If he had a dozen workmen like you, my brother and I should be ruined in trying to compete with him.  I watched you very closely the other day, and I watched the others, too.  By the bye, my friend, was that really an accident, or does the man owe you some grudge?  I never saw such a thing happen before!”

“It was an accident, of course,” replied Zorzi without hesitation.

“If you knew that the man had injured you intentionally, you should have justice at once,” said Giovanni.  “As it is, I have no doubt that my father will turn him out without mercy.”

“I hope not.”  Zorzi would say nothing more.

Giovanni rose to go away.  He stood still a moment in thought, and then smiled suddenly as if recollecting himself.

“The imagination is an extraordinary thing!” he said, going back to the past conversation.  “At this very moment I was thinking again that I was actually paying out the money—­six thousand lires in gold!  I must be mad!”

“No,” said Zorzi.  “I think not.”

Giovanni turned away, shaking his head and still smiling.  To tell the truth, though he knew Zorzi’s character, he had not believed that any one could refuse such a bribe, and he was trying to account for the Dalmatian’s integrity by reckoning up the expectations the young man must have, to set against such a large sum of ready money.  He could only find one solution to the problem:  Zorzi was already in full possession of the secrets, and would therefore not sell them at any price, because he hoped before long to set up for himself and make his own fortune by them.  If this were true, and he could not see how it could be otherwise, he and his brother would be cheated of their heritage when their father died.