Pompeo fled at full speed, crying "Murder!" and disappeared around the corner of the nearest street.
Benvenuto thereupon closed his window, hung his arquebus on its nail, and went to bed once more, laughing in his beard at poor Pompeo's fright.
The next morning, as he went down to his shop, which had been opened an hour earlier by his apprentices, he spied Pompeo on the opposite side of the street, where he had been doing sentry duty since daybreak, waiting to see him descend.
As soon as he saw Cellini, Pompeo waved his hand to him in the most affectionately friendly way imaginable.
"Aha!" said Cellini, "is it you, my dear Pompeo? By my faith! I was within an ace last night of making a churl pay dearly for his insolence in assuming your name."
"Indeed!" said Pompeo, forcing himself to smile, and drawing gradually nearer to the shop; "how did it happen, pray?"
Benvenuto thereupon described the incident to his Holiness's messenger; but as his friend Benvenuto had described him in their nocturnal interview as a coward, Pompeo did not dare confess his identity with the visitor. When his tale was finished, Cellini asked Pompeo to what happy circumstance he was indebted for the honor of so early a visit from him.
Pompeo thereupon acquitted himself, but in somewhat different terms, be it understood, of the errand upon which Clement VII. had sent him to his goldsmith. Benvenuto's features expanded as he proceeded. Clement VII. yielded; ergo the goldsmith had been more obstinate than the Pope.
"Say to his Holiness," said Benvenuto, when the message was duly delivered, "that I shall be very happy to obey him, and to do anything in my power to regain his favor, which I have lost, not by any fault of my own, but through the evil machinations of envious rivals. As for yourself, Signore Pompeo, as the Pope does not lack retainers, I counsel you, in your own interest, to look to it that another than you is sent to me hereafter; for your health's sake, Signore Pompeo, interfere no more in my affairs; in pity for yourself, never happen in my path, and for the welfare of my soul, Pompeo, pray God that I be not your Cæsar."
Pompeo waited to hear no more, but returned to Clement VII. with Cellini's reply, of which, however, he suppressed the peroration.