`Not at all,' said Botticelli. `Why should I take
it down? Can I not do as I like with my own
house?'

And this taught the weaver a lesson, so that he
made less noise and shaking, and Sandro had the
best of the joke after all.

There were no idle days of dreaming now for
Sandro. As soon as one picture was finished
another was wanted. Money flowed in, and his
purse was always full of gold, though he emptied it
almost as fast as it was filled. His work for the
Pope at Rome alone was so well paid that the
money should have lasted him for many a long day,
but in his usual careless way he spent it all before
he returned to Florence.

Perhaps it was the gay life at Lorenzo's splendid
court that had taught him to spend money so carelessly,
and to have no thought but to eat, drink, and
be merry. But very soon a change began to steal
over his life.

There was one man in Florence who looked with
sad condemning eyes on all the pleasure-loving
crowd that thronged the court of Lorenzo the
Magnificent. In the peaceful convent of San
Marco, whose walls the angel-painter had covered
with pictures `like windows into heaven,' the