"Well, then, you shall order another sign-frame of the smith; you shall
paint six physicians, and write underneath '_Aux Medici_' which makes a
very pretty play upon words."

"Six physicians! impossible! And the composition?" cried Pittrino.

"That is your business - but so it shall be - I insist upon it - it must
be so - my macaroni is burning."

This reasoning was peremptory - Pittrino obeyed. He composed the sign of
six physicians, with the legend; the _echevin_ applauded and authorized
it.

The sign produced an extravagant success in the city, which proves that
poetry has always been in the wrong, before citizens, as Pittrino said.

Cropole, to make amends to his painter-in-ordinary, hung up the nymphs of
the preceding sign in his bedroom, which made Madame Cropole blush every
time she looked at it, when she was undressing at night.

This is the way in which the pointed-gable house got a sign; and this is
how the hostelry of the Medici, making a fortune, was found to be
enlarged by a quarter, as we have described. And this is how there was
at Blois a hostelry of that name, and had for a painter-in-ordinary
Master Pittrino.


Chapter VI:
The Unknown.