, sniffing and
touching. All oil, most gracious Controller! So I said to myself again:
Either it came in, or it went out. If it came in, the farmer brought it,
and in that case there will be splashes outside the door, and they will
extend upwards, if it went out, that means that this accursed.... Hold
your tongue, I say!... took it to S. Mamette and sold it, and then the
splashes outside will extend downwards. So back I went, always
following the splashes and presently I found myself here at the door.
Most gracious Controller, those splashes all extended downwards! That
d----"

At this point the servant's voice rang out like the bell on an
alarm-clock, and no "hold your tongue" was strong enough to stem that
shrill flow of angry words. Pasotti tried, and not succeeding, flew into
a passion himself, and shouted: "Oh, you cheat!" following up that title
with a string of insults, at each of which Signor Giacomo gave a low
grunt of satisfaction. "Yes, yes, give it to her! that's right! I am
much obliged to you. Yes, shout,--that's right. You torment, you!--I am
really greatly obliged to you, most gracious Controller! Really greatly
obliged!"

When Marianna had been overpowered and reduced to silence, Pasotti told
Signor Giacomo that he must speak a few words with him. "I am really not
up to it," the little man complained. "You must excuse me, for I feel
quite ill."

"Not up to it, not up to it, indeed!" shouted Marianna who had revived.
"You had better tell us how you wear yourself out going up to Castello
at night to see the girls!"

"Hold your tongue," Puttini shrieked, while Pasotti exclaimed, with a
fiendish grin: "What, what, what!" Seeing that Puttini was becoming
furious, he took him by the arm, and calming him with peaceful and
affectionate language, dragged him away to his own house where he at
once summoned his wife, and started a game of three-handed _tarocchi_,
with the purpose of soothing the poor frog, and getting a firmer grip of
him.

* * * * *

If Signora Barborin played badly, Signor Giacomo, meditating, pondering
and puffing, played worse. He was an extremely timid player, and never
set himself up alone against the other two, but to-day at the very first
deal, he discovered that he held such extraordinary cards that he was
seized with a fit of courage, and, to use the language of the game, he
_entered_. "Goodness knows what sort of a hand he has!" Pasotti growled.