read it, and,
having read it, to bear it to you."

And Messer Guido answered me, eagerly: "I have not been home; I have
been all day with the cardinal. For love's sake, let me see." He took
the paper from me and read it over, and then he said to me, gravely:
"Why, this is better than the best we have had yet. This is the finish
of the ballad of fair Florentines. Here is the nightingale of Florence
singing his heart out for us, and we are at a loss for his name."

Then I, being delighted at my own initiation into this mystery of the
nameless singer, and fired by Guido's praises of him, turned to those
about me, and the room had filled a little by this time, and I cried
out, as indeed I had no business to do in a house where at best I was
little more than a stranger. And this is what I said: "Gentles all,
squires and dames, loving and loved, here is rose-scented news for you.
The unknown poet has sung again, and Messer Guido has the words in his
fingers."

Now there came a hush of talking in the room as I said these words, and
Messer Guido looked at me something reprovingly, because of my
forwardness, and all eyes were fixed upon the pair of us.

Then Messer Folco, moving close up to me, touched me on the shoulder and
said, with a quiet irony, "You are very good, sir, to be my major-domo."

Instantly I bowed to the ground in sober recognition of my error.
"Forgive me the heat of my zeal," I protested. "I diminish, I dwindle, I
wither. Unless your pity forgives me, I shall evaporate into air."

Then Messer Folco laughed good-humoredly, and, turning to Guido, said,
"Messer Guido, of your charity, let us hear."

But Guido, the ever obliging, was here unwilling to oblige. "Shall the
owl croak the notes of the nightingale?" he asked, extending his open
palms in a gesture of emphatic denial.

Now even at that moment, with Messer Guido politely declining, and
Messer Folco still in a mood between smiling and frowning on account of
my presumption, and I gaping open-mouthed, and the guests that were
gathered about us staring eagerly at the parchment which my dear friend
held in his hand, something curious occurred. There came a voice from
the press hard by me, a voice that I seemed to know very well and yet
that I could not on the instant name with the owner's name, and this
voice cried aloud, so that all present could hear the cry distinctly:
"Let Messer Dante read the rhymes!" Even as the voice spoke I saw the
reason for