up a cluster of tiny bags. "To every bride I give a
_Breve_ with a secret in it--the secret alone worth the money you pay
for the matrimony. The secret how to--no, no, I will not tell you what
the secret is about, and that makes it a double secret. Hang it round
your neck if you like, and never look at it; I don't say _that_ will not
be the best, for then you will see many things you don't expect: though
if you open it you may break your leg, _e vero_, but you will know a
secret! Something nobody knows but me! And mark--I give you the
_Breve_, I don't sell it, as many another holy man would: the quattrino
is for the matrimony, and the _Breve_ you get for nothing. _Orsu,
giovanetti_, come like dutiful sons of the Church and buy the Indulgence
of his Holiness Alexander the Sixth."

This buffoonery just fitted the taste of the audience; the _fierucola_
was but a small occasion, so the townsmen might be contented with jokes
that were rather less indecent than those they were accustomed to hear
at every carnival, put into easy rhyme by the Magnifico and his poetic
satellites; while the women, over and above any relish of the fun,
really began to have an itch for the _Brevi_. Several couples had
already gone through the ceremony, in which the conjuror's solemn
gibberish and grimaces over the open book, the antics of the monkey, and
even the preliminary spitting, had called forth peals of laughter; and
now a well-looking, merry-eyed youth of seventeen, in a loose tunic and
red cap, pushed forward, holding by the hand a plump brunette, whose
scanty ragged dress displayed her round arms and legs very
picturesquely.

"Fetter us without delay, Maestro!" said the youth, "for I have got to
take my bride home and paint her under the light of a lantern."

"Ha! Mariotto, my son, I commend your pious observance..." The
conjuror was going on, when a loud chattering behind warned him that an
unpleasant crisis had arisen with his monkey.

The temper of that imperfect acolyth was a little tried by the
over-active discipline of his colleague in the surplice, and a sudden
cuff administered as his taper fell to a horizontal position, caused him
to leap back with a violence that proved too much for the slackened knot
by which his cord was fastened. His first leap was to the other end of
the table, from which position his remonstrances were so threatening
that the imp in the surplice took up a wand by way of an equivalent
threat, w