e others laugh._

PAOLO. O, fie!

FIRST NOBLEMAN. So runs the scandal to our ears.

SECOND NOBLEMAN. Confirmed by all our other senses, Count.

FIRST NOBLEMAN. Witnessed by many a doleful sigh, poured out
By many a breaking heart in Rimini.

SECOND NOBLEMAN. Poor girls!

FIRST NOBLEMAN.[_Mimicking a lady._] Sweet Count! sweet
Count Paolo! O!
Plant early violets upon my grave!
Thus go a thousand voices to one tune.

[_The others laugh._

PAOLO. 'Ods mercy! gentlemen, you do me wrong.

FIRST NOBLEMAN. And by how many hundred, more or less?

PAOLO. Ah! rogues, you'd shift your sins upon my shoulders.

SECOND NOBLEMAN. You'd bear them stoutly.

FIRST NOBLEMAN. It were vain to give
Drops to god Neptune. You're the sea of love
That swallows all things.

SECOND NOBLEMAN. We the little fish
That meanly scull about within your depths.

PAOLO. Goon, goon! Talk yourselves fairly out.
[PEPE _laughs without._
But, hark! here comes the fool! Fit company
For this most noble company of wits!

[_Enter_ PEPE, _laughing violently._]

Why do you laugh?

PEPE. I'm laughing at the world.
It has laughed long enough at me; and so
I'll turn the tables. Ho! ho! ho! I've heard
A better joke of Uncle Malatesta's
Than any I e'er uttered. [_Laughing._

ALL. Tell it, fool.

PEPE. Why, do you know--upon my life, the best
And most original idea on earth:
A joke to put in practice, too. By Jove!
I'll bet my wit 'gainst the stupidity
Of the best gentleman among you all,
You cannot guess it.

ALL. Tell us, tell us, fool.

PEPE. Guess it, guess it, fools.

PAOLO Come, disclose, disclose!

PEPE. He has a match afoot.--

ALL. A match!

PEPE. A marriage.

ALL. Who?--who?

PEPE. A marriage in his family.

ALL. But, who?

PEPE. Ah! there's the point.

ALL. Paolo?

PEPE. No.

FIRST NOBLEMAN. The others are well wived. Shall we turn Turks?

PEPE. Why, there's the summit of his joke, good sirs.
By all the sacred symbols of my art--
By cap and bauble, by my tinkling bell--
He means