60.—“But among other witticisms those have very good grace that are made by taking the very words and sense from another man’s taunt and turning them against him and striking him with his own weapons; as where a litigant—whose adversary had said to him in the judge’s presence: ‘Why do you bark so?’—at once replied: ‘Because I see a thief.’ “And another instance of this was when Galeotto da Narni,[217] on his way through Siena, stopped in the street to ask for the inn; and a Sienese, seeing how fat he was, said, laughing: ‘Other men carry their wallets behind, but this one carries his in front.’ Galeotto at once replied: ‘That is the way we do in a land of thieves.’ 61.—“There is still another kind, which we call playing on words,[218] and this consists in changing a word by either adding or omitting a letter or a syllable; as when someone said: ‘You are better versed in the Lat_r_in tongue than in the Greek.’ And you, my Lady, had a letter addressed to you, ‘To my lady Emilia _Im_pia.’[219] “Moreover it is a pleasant thing to quote a verse or two, applying it to a purpose different from that which the author intends, or some other familiar saw; sometimes to the same purpose, but changing some word. As when a gentleman, who had an ugly and disagreeable wife, was asked how he was, he replied: ‘Judge yourself of my state, when _Furiarum maxima juxta me cubat_.’[220] And messer Geronimo Donato,[221] while going the rounds of the _Stazioni_[222] at Rome in Lent with several other gentlemen, met a bevy of beautiful Roman ladies; and one of the gentlemen saying: ‘_Quot coelum stellas, tot habet tua Roma puellas_,’[223] he at once replied: _Pascua quotque haedos, tot habet tua Roma cinaedos_,[224] pointing to a company of young men who were coming from the other direction. [Illustration: GALEOTTO MARZI DA NARNI 1427?-1490? ] Enlarged from a cast, kindly furnished by M. Pierre Valton, of an anonymous medal in his collection at Paris. See Armand’s _Les Médailleurs Italiens_, ii, 35, no. 25.