The armourer started to his feet in agitation. ’Messers!’ he cried, ’he poured oil into my wounds; I will consent to no such wickedness.’ ’_You_ won’t?’ roared Visconti; but Lampugnani soothed him down. ’When I said "put away," I meant in a tabernacle, like that sacred bread. I assure you, Lupo, he is the rose of our adoration also; he shall cultivate his thorn in peace; he shall wax fat like Jeshurun, and kick.’ ’And in the meantime,’ grumbled Visconti, ’we are measuring our fish before we’ve hooked him.’ Lampugnani’s face took on a very odd expression. ’What the devil’s behind that?’ hectored the bully. ’O, little!’ purred the other. ’I fancy I feel him nibble, that’s all. Perhaps you don’t happen to know how he hath cut his connection with the palace?’ ’What! When?’ They all jumped to stare at him. ’This day,’ he said, ’in offence of some carrion of Galeazzo’s which he had nosed out. The poor boy is particular in his tastes, for a shambles—ran like a sheep from the slaughter-house door, taking his Patch with him, and a ring her Grace had loaned him for a safe-conduct. I heard it said she would have been ravished of anything rather—by him. ’Twas her lord’s troth-gift. The castle is one fume of lamentation.’ Montano, rubbing his lean hands between his knees, went into a rejoicing chatter:— ’We have him, we have him! Gods! who’s here?’ Their intentness had deafened them some minutes earlier to a more mouthing note in the thunder of the rain, as if the swell of the tempest had been opened an instant and shut. The moment, in fact, and a master-key, had let in a new comer. He had closed the latch behind him, and now, seeing himself observed, stood ducking and lowering in the blinking light. The philosopher heaved a tremulous sigh of relief. ’Narcisso!’ The hulking creature grinned, and stabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ’Hist! him you speak of’s out there, a-seeking your worship.’ ’Seeking _me_? Messer Bembo?’ ’Why not? A’ met him at the town gate half-drowned, with his Patch to heel. The report of his running was got abroad, and, thinks I to myself, here’s luck to my masters. To take him on the hop of grievance like——’ Montano seemed to sip the phrase:— ’Exactly: on the hop of grievance. Well?’ ’Why, I spoke him fair: "Whither away, master?" A’ spat a saintly word—’twere a curse in a sinner—and sprang back, a’ did, glaring at me. But the great Fool pushed him by. "You’re the man," says he. "Desperation knows its fellows. Where’s Montano?" "Why, what would you with him?" says I, taken off my guard. "A salve for his wounds," he answered. And so I considered a bit, and brought ’em on, and there they wait.’ Visconti uttered a furious oath, but Lampugnani hushed him down. ’Didst well, pretty innocence,’ he said to Narcisso. ’The hop of grievance?—never a riper moment. Show in your friends.’ He was serenely confident of his policy—waved all protest aside. ’I see my way: the hook is baited: let him bite.’