"I may tell thee that thou art
sought for by Messer Filippo, for what cause I know not." "Good," quoth
Biondello, "I will go thither and speak with him." So away went
Biondello, and Ciacco followed him to see what course the affair would
take.

Now having failed to catch the rogue, Messer Filippo was still very
wroth, and inly fumed and fretted, being unable to make out aught from
what the rogue had said save that Biondello was set on by some one or
another to flout him. And while thus he vexed his spirit, up came
Biondello; whom he no sooner espied than he made for him, and dealt him a
mighty blow in the face, and tore his hair and coif, and cast his capuche
on the ground, and to his "Alas, Sir, what means this?" still beating him
amain:--"Traitor," cried he; "I will give thee to know what it means to
send me such a message. 'Colour the flask,' forsooth, and 'Catamites!'
Dost take me for a stripling, to be befooled by thee?" And therewith he
pummelled Biondello's face all over with a pair of fists that were liker
to iron than aught else, until it was but a mass of bruises; he also tore
and dishevelled all his hair, tumbled him in the mud, rent all his
clothes upon his back, and that without allowing him breathing-space to
ask why he thus used him, or so much as utter a word. "Colour me the
flask!" and "Catamites!" rang in his ears; but what the words signified
he knew not. In the end very badly beaten, and in very sorry and ragged
trim, many folk having gathered around them, they, albeit not without the
utmost difficulty, rescued him from Messer Filippo's hands, and told him
why Messer Filippo had thus used him, censuring him for sending him such
a message, and adding that thenceforth he would know Messer Filippo
better, and that he was not a man to be trifled with. Biondello told them
in tearful exculpation that he had never sent for wine to Messer Filippo:
then, when they had put him in a little better trim, crestfallen and
woebegone, he went home imputing his misadventure to Ciacco. And when,
many days afterwards, the marks of his ill-usage being gone from his
face, he began to go abroad again, it chanced that Ciacco met him, and
with a laugh:--"Biondello," quoth he, "how didst thou relish Messer
Filippo's wine?" "Why, as to that," replied Biondello, "would thou hadst
relished the lampreys of Messer Corso as much!" "So!" returned Ciacco,
"such meat as thou then gavest me, thou mayst henceforth give me, as
often as t