“Another time messer Giacomo Sadoleto[242] asked Beroaldo,[235] who was saying how much he wished to go to Bologna: ‘What is it that so presses you at this time to leave Rome, where there are so many pleasures, to go to Bologna, which is full of turmoil?’ Beroaldo replied: ‘On three counts I am forced to go to Bologna,’ and lifted three fingers of his left hand to enumerate three reasons for his going; when messer Giacomo quickly interrupted him and said: ‘These three Counts that make you go to Bologna are: first, Count Ludovico da San Bonifacio; second, Count Ercole Rangone; third, the Count of Pepoli.’ Whereupon everyone laughed, because these three Counts had been pupils of Beroaldo, and were fine youths studying at Bologna.[243] “Now we laugh heartily at this kind of witticism, because it carries with it a response different from the one we are expecting to hear, and in such matters we are naturally amused by our very mistake and laugh to find ourselves cheated of what we expect. 64.—“But the modes of speech and the figures that are graceful in grave and serious talk, are nearly always becoming in pleasantries and games as well. You see that words set in opposition produce much grace, when one contrasting clause is balanced by another. The same method is often very witty. Thus a Genoese, who was very prodigal in spending, was reproached by a very miserly usurer, who said to him: ‘When will you ever cease throwing away your riches?’ And he replied: ‘When you cease stealing other men’s.’ “And since, as we have said, the same situations that give opportunity for biting pleasantries may also give opportunity for serious words of praise,—it is a very graceful and becoming method in either case for a man to admit or confirm what another speaker says, but to interpret it in a manner different from what was intended. Thus a village priest was saying mass to his flock not long since, and after he had announced the festivals of the week, he began the general confession in the people’s name, saying: ‘I have sinned by doing evil, by saying evil, by thinking evil,’ and so forth, making mention of all the deadly sins. Whereupon a friend and close familiar of the priest, in order to make sport of him, said to the bystanders: ‘Bear witness all of you to what by his own mouth he confesses he has done, for I mean to report him to the bishop.’ “This same method was used by Sallaza dalla Pedrada[244] in complimenting a lady with whom he was speaking. First he praised her for her virtuous qualities and then for still being beautiful; and she replying that she did not deserve such praise because she was already old, he said to her: ‘My Lady, your only sign of age is your resemblance to the angels, who were the first and oldest creatures that God ever made.’