In a few minutes we were both ready, and we went to Checco. We found him seated at a table polishing a dagger.
'Do you remember in Tacitus,' he said, smiling pleasantly, 'how the plot against Nero was discovered by one of the conspirators giving his dagger to his freedman to sharpen? Whereupon the freedman became suspicious, and warned the Emperor.'
'The philosophers tell us to rise on the mistakes of others,' I remarked in the same tone.
'One reason for my affection towards you, Filippo,' he answered, 'is that you have nice moral sentiments, and a pleasant moral way of looking at things.'
He held out his dagger and looked at it. The blade was beautifully damaskeened, the hilt bejewelled.
'Look,' he said, showing me the excellence of the steel, and pointing out the maker's name. Then, meditatively, 'I have been wondering what sort of blow would be most effective if one wanted to kill a man.'
'You can get most force,' said Matteo, 'by bringing the dagger down from above your head--thus.'
'Yes; but then you may strike the ribs, in which case you would not seriously injure your friend.'
'The space is too small, and the chin may get in the way. On the other hand, a wound in the large vessels of that region is almost immediately fatal.'
'It is an interesting subject,' I said. 'My opinion is that the best of all blows is an underhand one, ripping up the stomach.'
I took the dagger and showed him what I meant.
'There are no hindrances in the way of bones; it is simple and certainly fatal.'
'Yes,' said Checco, 'but not immediately! My impression is that the best way is between the shoulders. Then you strike from the back, and your victim can see no uplifted hand to warn him, and, if he is very quick, enable him to ward the blow.'
'It is largely a matter of taste,' I answered, shrugging my shoulders. 'In these things a man has to judge for himself according to his own idiosyncrasies.'
After a little more conversation I proposed to Matteo that we should go out to the market-place and see the people.
'Yes, do!' said Checco, 'and I will go and see my father.'
As we walked along, Matteo told me that Checco had tried to persuade his father to go away for a while, but that he had refused, as also had his wife. I had seen old Orso d'Orsi once or twice; he was very weak and decrepit; he never came downstairs, but stayed in his own rooms all day by the fireside, playing with his grand-children. Checco was in the habit of going to see him every day, morning and evening, but to the rest of us it was as if he did not exist. Checco was complete master of everything.