THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

picking at his beard. I do not think I ever saw such a glut of animal enjoyment in a man's face before. There was not the glimmer
of a doubt what he intended. Semifonte had been told of his bondslave, and Palamone's hour of triumph was at hand. He would
bring a warrant; no doubt he had it by him; he waited only for the police. I was laid by the heels.
A gust of anger, like a puff of hot wind, blew upon me and made my skin prick me. All that I had endured at this rascal's hands
swelled within; and now I remembered also that I, a gentleman by birth and training, had been the galled slave of a low ruffian,
who now intended to sell into vice and infamy an honest girl whom I was pledged to protect. Well- being, rehabilitation, the
respect of my own world had done their work. He had to do with a man now, I told myself, not with a boy. I went to my
bureau, took out, primed and cocked my pistols, returned to the window and showed myself full to the frate.
"I wish you good morning, Fra Palamone," I said. His grinning face grinned awry, I promise you; but he recovered himself and
made a brave show.
"Buon di, Ser Francesco, buon di. You are betimes, I see. Or is it that you are belated like my injured friend Semifonte? The
smarting of his honour has kept him from his bed, let me tell you. But he has gone thither now, I hope, appeased."
"You intend to appease him, I believe, in eight hours from now," said I. "The commissary will be at his chocolate at eight
o'clock, at his office by eleven. It is now three."
"You are getting proficient in our tongue," he said, somewhat put out by my exactitude.
"Oh, I am proficient in more ways than one," I told him. "You taught me at Prato how to draw teeth, and I showed you, in the
same town, how claws could be cut. What did you think of the carcere? Well, now I will show you another accomplishment I
have. Draw teeth, cut claws! I can drill holes also, Palamone."
"What the devil are you talking about, poet?" says he, always quick to be amused.
"Why, this," I said. "I will come down to you in the Piazza. We have it to ourselves." I held up my pistol by the nozzle. He saw
the butt. He said, "Oho! that's your work, is it? You are growing in grace, Don Francis; and I am not the little man to disoblige
you. Many a score is on my slate to your name, and short scores make the longest friendships. Come down, my son, and play a
better game than faro."
By the time I got down he had taken off his cloak and came smiling towards me with both his hands held out. He was going to
embrace me—I knew that very well. He would have kissed me on both cheeks, warmly and with sincerity; and then, before his
arms were loosed from my neck, by a sudden surging of his lust, he would have throttled me. All that was as clear in his looks
as are the marks on this paper; but I could read my gentleman by now and was in no mood for his freakish humours. "Take
warning," I said, "that if you move one step nearer to me I shoot you like a rabbit." I crooked my arm and levelled at him as I
spoke. I suppose he saw truth in the mouth of the barrel, for he stopped, and looked at me, breathing hard.
"I admire you, Francis," he said. "I admire you more than ever before. If I had kissed you as I intended, you would have known
it."
"I do know it, damn you!" I replied. "But you would have strangled me afterwards."
"Why, so I should," he confessed, "even as surely as I mean to shoot you now. But that is neither here nor there. I'm a wild,
hungry old devil of a frate, but no man denies that I love a high spirit. I should have kissed you for that, and wrung the breath
out of you afterwards for a starved, misbegotten spawn of an English apothecary—as you are, my son. Now hand me one of
those pistols of yours, and say your paternoster while you are in the mind."
I handed him the weapon, telling him that I had loaded it myself overnight, but that if he wished to satisfy himself, I had both
powder and ball at his service.
He looked somewhat offended. "Do you think, my lad, that I doubt you?" he said. "I tell you that I love you. I would as soon
doubt my mother, who is in Heaven, or believe my father, who is not."
72