the apprentice's room and very soon have the sheets dragged off the bed
and a jug of cold water emptied over the sluggard's head.

Poor Buffalmacco, shivering and half dressed, would away grumbling, to
grind the colours in the dark, cold workroom, cudgelling his wits the
while, grinding and cursing all the time, to think of some way of
escaping such harsh and humiliating treatment in future. Long he sought
in vain; but his mind was an active one, and one morning early a happy
thought struck him.

To put this in execution, Buffalmacco waited till his master was out of
the way. Directly day broke, Andrea Tafi, as his habit was, pocketed the
flask of Chianti and the three eggs that formed his regular breakfast,
and bidding his pupils melt the glass tesseræ according to the
directions, and take every possible pains, went off to work in the
famous church of San Giovanni, a marvellously beautiful building,
constructed with admirable art in the Classical manner. At the time he
was executing on its walls a series of mosaics representing the Angels,
Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, Powers, Thrones and Dominions; the
chief acts of the Almighty, from the Creation of Light to the Deluge;
the history of Joseph and his brethren, the history of Jesus Christ from
the moment He was conceived in His Mother's womb till His Ascension
into Heaven, and the life of St. John Baptist. Seeing the infinite pains
he took to fix the pieces truly in the cement and arrange them
artistically, he expected both profit and fame as the result of this
great work and the host of figures it contained. Then, directly the
master was gone, Buffalmacco hastened to make his preparations for the
enterprise he was bent upon. He went down into the cellar, which,
communicating as it did with a baker's next door, was full of
cockroaches drawn thither by the smell of the sacks of flour. Everybody