“Moreover it is a fine thing to use metaphors seasonably in such cases. As when our friend master Marcantonio said to Bottone da Cesena,[296] who was goading him with words: ‘Bottone, Bottone, you will one day be the button (_bottone_), and your button-hole will be the halter.’ Another time, master Marcantonio having composed a very long comedy in several acts, this same Bottone said to master Marcantonio: ‘To play your comedy, all the timber there is in Slavonia will be needed for the setting.’ Master Marcantonio replied: ‘While for the setting of your tragedy, three sticks will be quite enough.’[297] 81.—“We often use a word in which there is a hidden meaning remote from the one we seem to intend. As was done by my lord Prefect here, on hearing mention of a certain captain who in his time had for the most part been defeated but just then had chanced to win. And the speaker telling that when the captain made his entry into the place in question, he had on a very beautiful crimson velvet doublet, which he always wore after his victories, my lord Prefect said: ‘It must be new.’ “Nor is there less laughter when we reply to something that our interlocutor has not said, or pretend to believe he has done something that he has not but ought to have done. As when Andrea Coscia,[298] having gone to visit a gentleman who rudely kept his seat and left his guest to stand, said: ‘Since your Lordship commands me, I will sit down to obey you;’ and so sat down.[299] [Illustration: POPE LEO X GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI “MY LORD CARDINAL” 1475-1521 ] Reduced from the central part of Braun’s photograph (no. 42.040) of the triple portrait, in the Pitti Gallery at Florence, painted between 1517 and 1519 by Raphael (1483-1520) with the assistance of his pupil Giulio Pippi, better known as Giulio Romano, (1492-1546). 82.—“We laugh also when a man accuses himself of some fault humourously. As when I told my lord Duke’s chaplain the other day that my lord Cardinal[300] had a chaplain who said mass faster than he, he answered me: ‘It is not possible;’ and coming close to my ear, he said: ‘You must know, I do not recite a third of the silent prayers.’ “Again, a priest at Milan having died, Biagino Crivello[301] begged his benefice of the Duke,[302] who however was minded to give it to someone else. At last Biagino saw that further argument was of no avail, and said: ‘What! After I have had the priest killed, why will you not give me his benefice?’ “It is often amusing also to express desire for those things that cannot be. As the other day, when one of our friends saw all these gentlemen playing at fence while he was lying on his bed, and said: ‘Ah, how glad I should be if this too were a fitting exercise for a strong man and a good soldier!’