‘Such things can’t be true, so I don’t believe them; but that’s what they tell.’
12
‘And don’t they tell other stories about there being treasures hid about Rome?’
‘Oh, yes; and some of them are true. It is quite certain that ——’ (and she named a very rich Roman prince) ‘found all the money that makes him so rich bricked up in a wall. They were altering a wall, and they came upon some gold. It was all behind a great wall, as big as the side of a room—all full, full of gold. When they came and told him he pretended not to be at all surprised, and said: “Oh, yes; it’s some money I put away there; it’s nothing; leave it alone.” But in the night he went down secretly and fetched it away,14 and that’s how he became so rich; for his father was a money-changer, who had a table where he changed money in the open street, and my father knew him quite well.’