He struck his hollow breast with a wild laugh. He groaned over the memory of that emotional folly. He damned himself, his trade, his employer, his aching head—everything and every one, in short, but the author of his misery. Him he could not curse—not more than if that preposterous relationship between them had been real. Neither did he once dream of violating his word to him, since it had been given—absurd thought—to his child. He was none the less savage against circumstance—vicious, desperate, insolent with his master, as cross all over as a Good Friday bun. Messer Lanti, himself in a curiously sober mood, indulged his most acrid sallies with a good-humoured tolerance which, contemptuously oblivious as it was of any late smart of his own inflicting, was harder than the blow itself in its implication of a fault overlooked. ’Rally, Cicca!’ said he, as they were preparing to horse; ’look’st as sour as a green crab. What! if we are to ride with Folly, give us a fool’s text for the journey, man.’ Cicada dwelt a moment on his stirrup, looking round banefully. ’And who to illustrate it, lord?’ ’Why, thy lord, if thou wilt,’ said Carlo. ’He will be no curmudgeon in a bid for laughter.’ The Fool gained his mule’s saddle, and digging heels into the beast’s flanks, drove forward. Lanti, with a whoop, spurred alongside of him. Cicada slowed to a stop. ’Hast overtaken Folly, master?’ said he, with a leer. ’I knew you would not be long.’ Carlo scratched his head. The Fool turned and rode back; so did the other. By the brook-side little Bembo was preparing to mount a steed with which he had been accommodated, since the lady had peremptorily declined to ride pillion to him again. Cicada referred to him with a gesture. ’For us,’ he said, ’we are two fools in a leash, sith Sanctity, stopping where he was, is at the goal before us.’ Lanti grumbled: ’O, if this is a text!’ and beat his wits desperately. ’A text, sirrah!’ he roared, ’a text for the journey.’ ’I will rhyme it you,’ said the Fool imperturbably, pointing his bauble at Madam Beatrice, who at the moment stepped from the green tent:— ’Nothing is gained to start apace, After another hath won the race. Shall you and I be jogging, master?’ Lanti raised his whip furiously. Cicada, slipping from his mule, dodged behind Bembo. ’Save me!’ he squealed, ’save me! I am sound. It is folly to give a sound man a tonic.’ Carlo burst into a vexed laugh. ’Well,’ said he, ’go to. I think I am in a rare mood for charity.’