'Ah, yes. On that first day when I rode with my man-at-arms we went to a tavern in the town I mentioned, and there he delivered me into the hands of the taverner's wife, to wash and clothe me. It was an odd fancy in such a man, as I now realise; but I am persuaded that whilst he rode that morning with my little body resting in the crook of his great arm, he conceived the notion to adopt me for his own. Men are like that, their natures made up of contradictory elements; and a rough, even brutal, soldier of fortune, not normally pitiful, may freakishly be moved to pity by the sight and touch of a poor waif astray by the roadside.' And on that he fell to musing. 'But the name?' the friar reminded him again. He laughed. 'Why, when the taverner's wife set me before him, scoured clean and dressed in a comely suit of green cloth, not unlike the suit I am wearing now--for I have affected green ever since in memory of him and of the first fair raiment I ever wore, which was of his providing--it may be that I presented a comely appearance. He stared at me in sheer surprise. I can see him now, seated on a three-legged stool in a patch of sunlight that came through the blurred glass of the window, one hand on the knee of his booted leg, the other stroking his crisp black beard, his grey eyes conning me with an increasing kindliness. '"Come hither, boy," he bade me, and held out his hand. 'I went without fear or hesitation. He rested me against his knee, and set a hand upon my head still tingling from its recent combing. '"What did you tell me is your name?" he asked. '"Ilario," I answered him. 'He stared a moment, then a smile half scornful broke upon his rugged, weather-beaten face. "Ilario, thou? With that solemn countenance and those big melancholy eyes?" He ran on in words which I remember, though I barely caught their meaning then. "Was there ever an Ilario less hilarious? There's no hilarity about you, child, nor ever has been, I should judge. Ilario! Faugh! Bellario, rather, with such a face. Is he not a lovely lad?" He turned me about for the approval of the taverner's wife, who stood behind me, and she, poor woman, made haste to agree, with fawning smiles, as she would have agreed with anything uttered by this dread man who must be conciliated. "Bellario!" he repeated, savouring the word of his invention with an inventor's pride. "That were a better name for him, indeed. And by the Host, Bellario he shall be renamed. Do you hear me, boy? Henceforth you are Bellario."' Thus, he explained, the name so lightly bestowed became his own; and later because of his rapid and rather excessive growth, the monks at the Grazie fell into the habit of calling him Bellarione, or big Bellario.