"Ezza!" cried the poet, rising and shaking hands in a pleasant astonishment. "Well, I've seen you in many costumes in the green room; but I never expected to see you dressed up as an Englishman."
"This," answered Ezza gravely, "is not the costume of an Englishman, but of the Italian of the future."
"In that case," remarked Muscari, "I confess I prefer the Italian of the past."
"That is your old mistake, Muscari," said the man in tweeds, shaking his head; "and the mistake of Italy. In the sixteenth century we Tuscans made the morning: we had the newest steel, the newest carving, the newest chemistry. Why should we not now have the newest factories, the newest motors, the newest finance—and the newest clothes?"
"Because they are not worth having," answered Muscari. "You cannot make Itali
