"'And then the fat man answered wheezily, "It shall be done, _Ser Capitano_. And he shall sup well and choose his company; it is an old usage and shall be observed." He then turned to me and said, with a mock reverence, "Whom does the Signore choose to sup with before he retires to rest?" "'I turned to the man I had spoken with as we rode, and laid my hand on his shoulder. "_Sicuro_," I said, "with none other than _Messer Nanerottolo_ here." This was my pleasantry, for he was a monstrous big man, but not ill-favoured. I went on, "I owe you a supper, my friend, for that _piccolo vezzeggiamento_ you have given me----" "What does that mean?" Thus his hearers, in concert. "A little caress. I don't know why the Professor has left some of the Italian words. _Nanerottolo_ means a very little dwarf indeed, and he could hardly have translated. But he might have said caress just as well." He resumed reading: "'"I can feel it in my shoulder still." At this he laughed, but said again I was a _bel giovane_, and _molto bravo_. "And it is to you," I said, "that I owe my supper here to-night." But his _Capitano_ gave a laugh, and said, "_Piuttosto a quel piccolo vezzeggiamento che tu desti alia Duchessa_----" Here the reader paused to interpret the Italian again, which was hardly needed; then said, "There is another gap in the manuscript here, and it is a pity. The Professor thinks a few more words from what followed would have made his theory a certainty." "Why?" asked Madeline. "Because 'the caress you gave the Duchess' could only mean that he owed his supper to having half strangled the old _Duchessa_. They couldn't mean anything else in the context." "Couldn't they? Never mind, Uncle Christopher! Go on now. I'll tell you presently." Uncle Christopher obeyed, recommencing as before after the gap in the middle of a sentence: "'... Prison for life accords ill with life and hope and youth and the blood that courses in its veins. Whereas despair in an exhausted frame, and pain and hunger, breed a longing for the worst, and if it may be, for an early death. Hence, _Illustrissima_, my good supper, which was given ungrudgingly, while it made me another man, and better able to endure the pain left from the blow of my friend who sat at meat with me, gave me also strength to revolt against the terrible doom that awaited me. Also, hope and purpose revived in my heart, and I knew my last word with the world of living men must be spoken before midnight; for this was told me by the dropsical Castellan, with an accursed smile. So I watch for the moment when my friend, whose name was Attilio, is at his topmost geniality with the good wine, and then I speak, none being there to hear, but only he. I speak as to a friend: