ardinal virtues; but must own I am not much given
to assassination, murder being inconvenient; and one thing I am bound to
acknowledge, which is, that I never betrayed a messmate."

"That's as well," observed Morgante; "because you see, as you don't
believe in any thing else, I'd have you believe in this bell-clapper of
mine. So now, as you have been candid with me, and I am well instructed
in your ways, we'll pursue our journey together."

The best of giants, in those days, were not scrupulous in their modes of
living; so that one of the best and one of the worst got on pretty well
together, emptying the larders on the road, and paying nothing but
douses on the chops. When they could find no inn, they hunted elephants
and crocodiles. Morgante, who was the braver of the two, delighted to
banter, and sometimes to cheat, Margutte; and he ate up all the fare;
which made the other, notwithstanding the credit he gave himself for
readiness of wit and tongue, cut a very sorry figure, and seriously
remonstrate: "I reverence you," said Margutte, "in other matters; but in
eating, you really don't behave well. He who deprives me of my share at
meals is no friend; at every mouthful of which he robs me, I seem to
lose an eye. I'm for sharing every thing to a nicety, even if it be no
better than a fig."

"You are a fine fellow," said Morgante; "you gain upon me very much. You
are 'the master of those who know.'"[6]

So saying, he made him put some wood on the fire, and perform a hundred
other offices to render every thing snug; and then he slept: and next
day he cheated his great scoundrelly companion at drink, as he had
done the day before at meat; and the poor shabby devil complained; and
Morgante laughed till he was ready to burst, and again and again always
cheated him.

There was a levity, nevertheless, in Margutte, which restored his
spirits on the slightest glimpse of good fortune; and if he realised a
hearty meal, he became the happiest, beastliest, and most confident of
giants. The companions, in the course of their journey, delivered a
damsel from the clutches of three other giants. She was the daughter of
a great lord; and when she got home, she did honour to Morgante as to
an equal, and put Margutte into the kitchen, where he was in a state of
bliss. He did nothing but swill, stuff, surfeit, be sick, play at dice,
cheat, filch, go to sleep, guzzle again, laugh, chatter, and tell a
thousand lies.

Morgante took leav