verse and other parts_") produces a
risible effect and gives the reader to understand that Scalza broaches
the question only by way of a joke. The same may be said of the
jesting inversion of the word philosophers (phisopholers, Fisofoli) in
the next line.]

[Footnote 306: _Baronci_, the Florentine name for what we should call
professional beggars, "mumpers, chanters and Abrahammen," called
_Bari_ and _Barocci_ in other parts of Italy. This story has been a
prodigious stumbling-block to former translators, not one of whom
appears to have had the slightest idea of Boccaccio's meaning.]

When the young men, who looked for him to say otherwhat, heard this,
they all made mock of him and said, 'Thou gullest us, as if we knew
not the Cadgers, even as thou dost.' 'By the Evangels,' replied
Scalza, 'I gull you not; nay, I speak the truth, and if there be any
here who will lay a supper thereon, to be given to the winner and half
a dozen companions of his choosing, I will willingly hold the wager;
and I will do yet more for you, for I will abide by the judgment of
whomsoever you will.' Quoth one of them, called Neri Mannini, 'I am
ready to try to win the supper in question'; whereupon, having agreed
together to take Piero di Fiorentino, in whose house they were, to
judge, they betook themselves to him, followed by all the rest, who
looked to see Scalza lose and to make merry over his discomfiture, and
recounted to him all that had passed. Piero, who was a discreet young
man, having first heard Neri's argument, turned to Scalza and said to
him, 'And thou, how canst thou prove this that thou affirmest?' 'How,
sayest thou?' answered Scalza. 'Nay, I will prove it by such reasoning
that not only thou, but he who denieth it, shall acknowledge that I
speak sooth. You know that, the ancienter men are, the nobler they
are; and so was it said but now among these. Now the Cadgers are more
ancient than any one else, so that they are nobler; and showing you
how they are the most ancient, I shall undoubtedly have won the wager.
You must know, then, that the Cadgers were made by God the Lord in the
days when He first began to learn to draw; but the rest of mankind
were made after He knew how to draw. And to assure yourselves that in
this I say sooth, do but consider the Cadgers in comparison with other
folk; whereas you see all the rest of mankind with faces well composed
and duly proportioned, you may see the Cadgers, this with a visnomy
ver