"and why the
devil are you so late to report yourself?"

"Ah, Excellence, believe me--" began to stutter the Captain.

"That is exactly what I will not do, my man. Who was that wench at your
back yesterday?"

The Captain rubbed his hands. "Excellence, a wench indeed! A golden
Venetian--glorious! Dove-eyed, honey-tongued, and very much your
lordship's servant, I do assure you."

"You are so completely and at such length a fool, Mosca," said Count
Guarini, with a yawn, "and strive so desperately to be rascal in spite
of it, that I am almost sorry for you. Tie me these points, my good
fellow, get me my sword, and go to the devil with your golden Venetian."

That, believe me, had been all. Therefore Captain Mosca, as he slunk out
into the dark after supper in obedience to his inexorable Olimpia, felt
that he must be more ingenious than he had supposed. At the same time it
is only fair to say that when he had spoken so hopefully of his affair
to the lady on the pillion he had believed every word of his own story.
A man puts on spectacles to suit his complexion: the Captain's was
sanguine.

V

FORTUNE WITH THE DOUBLE BLADE

"Similemente agli splendor mondani
Ordino general ministra e duca,
Che permutasse a tempo li ben vani,
Di gente in gente, e d'uno in altro sangue."--_Inf._ vii. 77.

Angioletto had cause to believe in that star of his, for it never
wavered in the course it held. Borso's court found him much to its
taste. The men, however tall, of looks however terrible, bent their
height and unbent their scowls to him; he was the pet of all the women;
the very Fool, saturnine as he was (with a bite in every jest), had no
gibe to put him to the blush withal. He made money, or money's worth, as
fast as friends. A gold chain with a peregrine in enamel and jewels came
to him by the hands of the Chamberlain; nothing was said, but he knew it
was from the Duke. Countess Lionella could not reward him enough--now a
jewel, now a gold cup, at one time a purse, at another a crystal phial
filled with Jordan water. And so it went, the star waxing ever. He could
have maintained the discreet house by Porta Angeli out of his earnings,
and he did; but you have to pay for your luck somehow, and it very soon
happened that he could not maintain himself in it. He was only too
popular. The Count Guarino wanted him at the Palazzo Guarini; the
Countess insisted that he should remain in bond at the Schifanoi