se, which did not, however, appear to be sufficiently stored to answer
very heavy demands, by ordering cup after cup to supply the place of those
which were so quickly drained to the dregs. In this manner an hour or two
passed swiftly, they who were charged with the care of the jolly party in
the town-house being much more occupied in noting the festivities without,
than those within, the prison.

"Thou hast a merry life of it, honest Pippo," cried Conrad with swimming
eyes, answering a remark of the buffoon. "Thou art but a laugh at the
best, and wilt go through the world grinning and making others grin. Thy
Policinello is a rare fellow, and I never meet one of thy set that weary
legs and sore feet are not forgotten in his fooleries!"

"Corpo di Bacco!--I wish this were so; but thou hast much the best of the
matter, even in the way of amusement, reverend pilgrim, though to the
looker-on it would seem otherwise. The difference between us, pious
Conrad, is just this--that thou laughest in thy sleeve without seeming to
be merry, whereas I yawn ready to split my jaws while I seem to be dying
with fun. Your often-told joke is a bad companion, and gets at last to be
as gloomy as a dirge. Wine can be swallowed but once, and laughter will
not come for ever for the same folly. Cospetto! I would give the earnings
of a year for a set of new jokes, such as might come fresh from the wit of
one who never saw a mountebank, and are not worn threadbare with being
rubbed against the brains of all the jokers in Europe."

"There was a wise man of old, of whom it is not probable that any of you
have ever heard," observed Maso, "who has said there was nothing new under
the sun."

"He who said that never tasted of this liquor, which is as raw as if it
were still running from the press," rejoined the pilgrim. "Knave, dost
think that we are unknowing in these matters, that thou darest bring a pot
of such lees to men of our quality? Go to, and see that thou doest us
better justice in the next!"

"The wine is the same as that which first pleased you, but it is the
nature of drunkenness to change the palate; and therein Solomon was right
as in all other points," coolly remarked Il Maledetto. "Nay, friend, thou
wilt scarce bring thy liquors again to those who do not know how to do
them proper honor."

Maso thrust the lad who served them from the room, and he slipped a small
coin in his hand, ordering him not to return. Inebriety had made
suf