d
man's help, asked him if it was the Devil had done the mischief. But he
only sighed heavily, and said:

"It's all up with me; pull me out of this. I'm a dying man!"

At last they dragged him from among the debris, under which he was ready
to suffocate, and placed him sitting up with his back to the wall. He
breathed hard, coughed and spat, and:

"My lads," he said, "but for the timely succour of Our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hurled me back to earth again with a violence you can
plainly see the effects of, I should at this present moment be in the
circle of Heaven named the crystalline or _primum mobile_. His holy
Mother would not listen to a word. In my fall, I have lost three teeth,
which, without being exactly sound, still did me good service.
Moreover, I have an agonizing pain in my right side and in the arm that
holds the brush."

"My master," said Apollonius pityingly, "you must have received some
internal hurts, which is a very dangerous thing. At Constantinople, in
the risings, I discovered how much more deadly such injuries are than
mere external wounds. But never fear, I am going to charm away the
mischief with spells."

"Not for worlds!" put in the old man; "that were a deadly sin. But come
hither, all three, and do me the service, an you will, of rubbing me
well in the worst places."

They did as he asked, and never left him till they had pretty well
scarified every bit of skin off the old fellow's back and loins.

The good lads made it their first business to sow the story broadcast
through the city. This they did to such good effect that there was not
man, woman nor child in Florence could look Master Andrea Tafi in the
face without bursting out laughing. Now one morning Buffalmacco was
passing down the Corso, Messer Guido, the son of the Signor Cavalcanti,
who was on his way to the marshes to shoot crane, stopped his horse,
called the apprentice to him, and tossed him his purse with the words:

"Ho! gentle Buffalmacco, here's somewhat to drink to the health of
Epicurus and his disciples."

You must know Messer Guido was of the sect of the Epicureans and loved
to marshal well-arranged arguments against the existence of God. He was
used to declare the death of men is precisely the same as that of
beasts.

"Buffalmacco," added the young nobleman, "this purse I have given you is
for payment of the very instructive, complete and profitable experiment
you made, when you sent old Tafi to Heaven--who,