.

_Boccaccio._

Frate Biagio! sempre quando
Qua tu vieni cavalcando,
Pensi che le buone strade
Per il mondo sien ben rade;
E, di quante sono brutte,
La piu brutta e tua di tutte.
Badi, non cascare sulle
Graziosissime fanciulle,
Che con capo dritto, alzato,
Uova portano al mercato.
Pessima mi pare l'opra
Rovesciarle sottosopra.
Deh! scansando le erte e sassi,
Sempre con premura passi.
Caro amico! Frate Biagio!
Passi pur, ma passi adagio.

_Frate._ Well now really, Canonico, for one not exactly one of us,
that canzone of Ser Giovanni has merit; has not it? I did not ride,
however, to-day; as you may see by the lining of my frock. But _plus
non vitiat_; ay, Canonico! About the roads he is right enough; they
are the devil's own roads; that must be said for them.

Ser Giovanni! with permission; your mention of eggs in the canzone has
induced me to fancy I could eat a pair of them. The hens lay well now:
that white one of yours is worth more than the goose that laid the
golden: and you have a store of others, her equals or betters: we have
none like them at poor St. Vivaldo. _A riverderci, Ser Giovanni!
Schiavo! Ser Canonico! mi commandino._

* * * * *

... Fra Biagio went back into the kitchen, helped himself to a quarter
of a loaf, ordered a flask of wine, and, trying several eggs against
his lips, selected seven, which he himself fried in oil, although the
maid offered her services. He never had been so little disposed to
enter into conversation with her; and on her asking him how he found
her master, he replied, that in bodily health Ser Giovanni, by his
prayers and ptisans, had much improved, but that his faculties were
wearing out apace. 'He may now run in the same couples with the
Canonico: they cannot catch the mange one of the other: the one could
say nothing to the purpose, and the other nothing at all. The whole
conversation was entirely at my charge,' added he. 'And now, Assunta,
since you press it, I will accept the service of your master's shoes.
How I shall ever get home I don't know.' He took the shoes off the
handles of the bellows, where Assunta had placed them out of her way,
and tucking one of his own under each arm, limped toward St. Vivaldo.

The unwonted attention to smartness of apparel, in the only article
wherein it could be displayed, was suggested to Frate