n
four-footed dogs also, who had learned to take kindly to Lenten fare,
applied a discriminating nostril, and then disappeared with much
rapidity under the nearest shelter; while the mules, not without some
kicking and plunging among impeding baskets, were stretching their
muzzles towards the aromatic green-meat.

"Diavolo!" said Bratti, as he and his companion came, quite unnoticed,
upon the noisy scene; "the Mercato is gone as mad as if the most Holy
Father had excommunicated us again. I must know what this is. But
never fear: it seems a thousand years to you till you see the pretty
Tessa, and get your cup of milk; but keep hold of me, and I'll hold to
my bargain. Remember, I'm to have the first bid for your suit,
specially for the hose, which, with all their stains, are the best
_panno di garbo_--as good as ruined, though, with mud and weather
stains."

"Ola, Monna Trecca," Bratti proceeded, turning towards an old woman on
the outside of the nearest group, who for the moment had suspended her
wail to listen, and shouting close in her ear: "Here are the mules
upsetting all your bunches of parsley: is the world coming to an end,
then?"

"Monna Trecca" (equivalent to "Dame Greengrocer") turned round at this
unexpected trumpeting in her right ear, with a half-fierce,
half-bewildered look, first at the speaker, then at her disarranged
commodities, and then at the speaker again.

"A bad Easter and a bad year to you, and may you die by the sword!" she
burst out, rushing towards her stall, but directing this first volley of
her wrath against Bratti, who, without heeding the malediction, quietly
slipped into her place, within hearing of the narrative which had been
absorbing her attention; making a sign at the same time to the younger
stranger to keep near him.

"I tell you I saw it myself," said a fat man, with a bunch of
newly-purchased leeks in his hand. "I was in Santa Maria Novella, and
saw it myself. The woman started up and threw out her arms, and cried
out and said she saw a big bull with fiery horns coming down on the
church to crush it. I saw it myself."

"Saw what, Goro?" said a man of slim figure, whose eye twinkled rather
roguishly. He wore a close jerkin, a skull-cap lodged carelessly over
his left ear as if it had fallen there by chance, a delicate linen apron
tucked up on one side, and a razor stuck in his belt. "Saw the bull, or
only the woman?"

"Why, the woman, to be sure; but it's all one