invited this morning to his banquet." They went to their master
and told him what the ghost had said. The master said: "I? All those
whom I invited are here, and I have invited no one else." They said: "If
you should see him! It is a ghost that is terrifying." Then it came into
the young man's mind that it might be that dead man; and he said to the
servants: "Quick! quick! close the doors and balconies, so that he
cannot enter!" The servants went to close everything; but hardly had
they done so when the doors and balconies were thrown wide open and the
ghost entered. He went up where they were feasting, and said: "Robert!
Robert! was it not enough for you to profane everything? Have you wished
to disturb the dead, also? The end has come!" All were terrified, and
fled here and there, some concealing themselves, and some falling on
their knees. Then the ghost seized Robert by the throat and strangled
him and carried him away with him; and thus he has left this example,
that it is not permitted to mock the poor dead.[31]

* * * * *

The ninth and last of Bernoni's legends is a story about Massariol, the
domestic spirit of the Venetians. A man of family, whose business takes
him out at night, finds in the street a basket containing an infant. The
weather is very cold, so the good man carries the foundling home, and
his wife, who already has a young child, makes the little stranger as
comfortable as possible. He is cared for and put in the cradle by the
side of the other child. The husband and wife have to leave the room a
moment; when they return the foundling has disappeared. The husband asks
in amazement: "What can it mean?" She answers: "I am sure I don't know;
can it be Massariol?" Then he goes out on the balcony and sees at a
distance one who seems like a man, but is not, who is clapping his hands
and laughing and making all manner of fun of him, and then suddenly
disappears.

The same mischievous spirit plays many other pranks. Sometimes he cheats
the ferrymen out of their toll; sometimes he disguises himself like the
baker's lad, and calls at the houses to take the bread to the oven, and
then carries it away to some square or bridge; sometimes, when the
washing is hung out, he carries it off to some distant place, and when
the owners have at last found their property, Massariol laughs in their
faces and disappears. The woman who related these stories to Bernoni
added: "Massariol has