ficient ravages for his ends, and he was now desirous of stopping
farther excesses.

"Here come the mummers--gods and goddesses, shepherds and their lasses and
all the other pleasantries, to keep us in humor! To do these Vevaisans
justice, they treat us rarely; for ye see they send their players to amuse
our retirement!"

"Wine! liquor! raw or ripe, bring us liquor!" roared Conrad, Pippo, and
their pot-companions, who were much too drunk to detect the agency of Maso
in defeating their wishes, though they were just drunk enough to fancy
that what he said of the attention of the authorities was not only true
but merited.

"How now, Pippo! art ashamed to be outdone in thine own craft, that thou
bellowest for wine at the moment when the actors have come into the square
to exhibit their skill?" cried the mariner. "Truly, we shall have a mean
opinion of thy merit, if thou art afraid to meet a few Vaudois peasants in
thy trade,--and thou a buffoon of Napoli!"

Pippo swore with pot-oaths that he defied the cleverest of Switzerland;
for that he had not only acted on every mall and mole of Italy, but that
he had exhibited in private before princes and cardinals, and that he had
no superior on either side of the Alps. Maso profited by his advantage,
and, by applying fresh goads to his vanity, soon succeeded in causing him
to forget the wine, and in drawing him, with all the others, to the
windows.

The processions, in making the circuit of the city, had now reached the
square of the town-house, where the acting and exhibition were repeated,
as has been already related in general terms to the reader. There were
the officers of the abbaye, the vine-dressers, the shepherds and the
shepherdesses, Flora, Ceres, Pales, and Bacchus, with all the others,
attended by their several trains and borne in state as became their high
attributes. Silenus rolled from his ass, to the great joy of a thousand
shouting blackguards, and to the infinite scandal of the prisoners at the
windows, the latter affirming to a man that there was no acting in the
case, but that the demigod was shamefully under the influence of too many
potations that had been swallowed in his own honor.

We shall not go over the details of these scenes, which all who have ever
witnessed a public celebration will readily imagine, nor is it necessary
to record the different sallies of wit that, under the inspiration of the
warm wines of Vevey and the excitement of the revels,