at then?

_Cas_. O nothing--nothing at all.

_Duke_. Nothing at all!
It is most singular that you should laugh
At nothing at all!

_Cas_. Most singular--singular!

_Duke_. Look yon, Castiglione, be so kind
As tell me, sir, at once what 'tis you mean.
What are you talking of?

_Cas_. Was it not so?
We differed in opinion touching him.

_Duke_. Him!--Whom?

_Cas_. Why, sir, the Earl Politian.

_Duke_. The Earl of Leicester! Yes!--is it he you mean?
We differed, indeed. If I now recollect
The words you used were that the Earl you knew
Was neither learned nor mirthful.

_Cas_. Ha! ha!--now did I?

_Duke_. That did you, sir, and well I knew at the time
You were wrong, it being not the character
Of the Earl--whom all the world allows to be
A most hilarious man. Be not, my son,
Too positive again.

_Cas_. 'Tis singular!
Most singular! I could not think it possible
So little time could so much alter one!
To say the truth about an hour ago,
As I was walking with the Count San Ozzo,
All arm in arm, we met this very man
The Earl--he, with his friend Baldazzar,
Having just arrived in Rome. Ha! ha! he _is_ altered!
Such an account he gave me of his journey!
'Twould have made you die with laughter--such tales he
told
Of his caprices and his merry freaks
Along the road--such oddity--such humor--
Such wit--such whim--such flashes of wild merriment
Set off too in such full relief by the grave
Demeanor of his friend--who, to speak the truth
Was gravity itself--

_Duke_. Did I not tell you?

_Cas_. You did--and yet 'tis strange! but true, as strange,
How much I was mistaken! I always thought
The Earl a gloomy man.

_Duke_. So, so, you see!
Be not too positive. Whom have we here?
It cannot be the Earl?