His clear, serene young brow confronted the fuddled wrinkles of the other’s like an angel’s. ’Cicada mio,’ he said endearingly; ’judge if God is dull of hearing, when, on the echo of my cry, here is one holding out his hand to me!’ The Fool, staring stupidly, lifted his own lean right paw, and squinted to focus his gaze on it. ’Meaning me?—meaning this?’ he said. Bembo nodded. ’A return, with interest, on the little service I was able to render thee this morning. O, I am grateful, Cicada!’ The Fool, utterly bemused, squatted him down on the grass in a sudden inspiration, and so brought his wits to anchor. Bernardo fell on his knees beside him. ’What moved you to come and save me?’ he said softly. ’What moved you?’ Cicada, disciplined to seize the worst occasion with an epigram, made a desperate effort to concentrate his parts on the present one. ’The wine in my head,’ he mumbled, waggling that sage member. ’’Tis the wet-nurse to all valour. I walked but out of the furnace a furlong to cool myself, and lo! I am a hero without knowing it.’ He looked up dimly, his face working and twitching in the moonlight. ’Recount, expound, and enucleate,’ said he. ’From what has the Fool saved the Parablist?’ ’From the deep waters,’ said Bembo, ’into which he had entered, magnifying his height.’ The Fool fell a-chuckling. ’There was a hunter once,’ said he, ’that thought he would sound his horn to a hymn, and behold! he was chasing the deer before he had fingered the first stops. Expound me the parable, Parablist. Thou preachest universal goodwill, they say?’ ’Ay, do I.’ ’Thou shalt be confuted with thine own text.’ ’How, dear Fool?’ ’Why, shall not every wife be kind to her friend’s husband?’ ’Ay, if she would be unkind to her own.’ The Fool scratched his head, his hood thrown back. ’And so, in thy wisdom, thou step’st into a puddle, and lo! it is over thy ears. Will you come out, good Signor Goodwill, and ride home in a baby’s pannier?’ Bembo caught one of the wrinkled hands in his soft palms. ’Dear Cicada,’ he said, ’are there not tears in your heart the whiles you mock? Do you not love me, Cicada, as one you have saved from death?’ Some sort of emotion startled the harsh features of the Fool. ’What better love could I show,’ he muttered, ’than to warn thee back from the toils that stretch for thy wings?’ ’Ah, to warn me, to warn me, Cicada!’ cried the boy, ’but not home to the nest. How shall he ever fly that fears to quit it? Be rather like my mother, Cicada, and advise these my simple wings.’ The Fool caught his breath in a sudden gasp— ’Thy mother! I!’ A spasm of pain seemed to cross his face. He laughed wildly. ’An Angel out of a Fool! That were a worthy parent to hold divinity in leading-strings.’ ’Zitto, Cicca mio!’ said Bembo sweetly, pressing a finger to his lips. ’Do I not know what wit goes to the acting of folly—what experience, what observation? If thou wouldst lend these all to my help and aid!’