well enough, Sir, that 'tis true as I said
yesternight, that the crane has but one thigh and one leg; mark but how
they stand over there." Whereupon Currado:--"Wait," quoth he, "and I will
shew thee that they have each thighs and legs twain." So, having drawn a
little nigher to them, he ejaculated, "Oho!" Which caused the cranes to
bring each the other foot to the ground, and, after hopping a step or
two, to take to flight. Currado then turned to Chichibio, saying:--"How
now, rogue? art satisfied that the bird has thighs and legs twain?"
Whereto Chichibio, all but beside himself with fear, made answer:--"Ay,
Sir; but you cried not, oho! to our crane of yestereve: had you done so,
it would have popped its other thigh and foot forth, as these have done."
Which answer Currado so much relished, that, all his wrath changed to
jollity and laughter:--"Chichibio," quoth he, "thou art right, indeed I
ought to have so done."

Thus did Chichibio by his ready and jocund retort arrest impending evil,
and make his peace with his master.

NOVEL V.

--
Messer Forese da Rabatta and Master Giotto, the painter, journeying
together from Mugello, deride one another's scurvy appearance.
--

Neifile being silent, and the ladies having made very merry over
Chichibio's retort, Pamfilo at the queen's command thus spoke:--Dearest
ladies, if Fortune, as Pampinea has shewn us, does sometimes bide
treasures most rich of native worth in the obscurity of base occupations,
so in like manner 'tis not seldom found that Nature has enshrined
prodigies of wit in the most ignoble of human forms. Whereof a notable
example is afforded by two of our citizens, of whom I purpose for a brief
while to discourse. The one, Messer Forese da Rabatta by name, was short
and deformed of person and withal flat-cheeked and flat-nosed, insomuch
that never a Baroncio(1) had a visage so misshapen but his would have
shewed as hideous beside it; yet so conversant was this man with the
laws, that by not a few of those well able to form an opinion he was
reputed a veritable storehouse of civil jurisprudence. The other, whose
name was Giotto, was of so excellent a wit that, let Nature, mother of
all, operant ever by continual revolution of the heavens, fashion what
she would, he with his style and pen and pencil would depict its like on
such wise that it shewed not as its like, but rather as the thing itself,
insomuch that the visual sense of men did often err in regard the