“It is not long since there arrived at the court (of I know whom) a Bergamasque rustic on business for a courtier gentleman; and this rustic was so well attired and elegantly appointed that, although he had been only used to tend cattle and knew no other trade, anyone who did not hear him speak would have taken him for a gallant cavalier. Now, being told that a Spanish follower of Cardinal Borgia[306] had arrived, and that he was called Castillo and was exceedingly clever, a musician, a dancer, a _ballatore_,[307] and the most accomplished Courtier in all Spain,—these two ladies were filled with extreme desire to speak with him, and straightway sent for him. And after receiving him with ceremony, they made him sit down and began to speak to him with the greatest distinction before all the company; and there were few of those present who did not know that the fellow was a Bergamasque cow-herd. So when these ladies were seen entertaining him with so much respect and honouring him so signally, the laughter was very hearty, the more so as the good man spoke his native Bergamasque dialect all the while.[308] But the gentlemen who played the trick had told these ladies in the beginning that he was among other things a great joker, and spoke all languages admirably and especially rustic Lombard. Thus they continually imagined that he was pretending, and they often turned to each other with an air of surprise, and said: ‘Listen to this prodigy, how well he counterfeits the language!’ In short, the conversation lasted so long that everyone’s sides ached from laughing; and he himself could not help giving so many tokens of his gentility that even these ladies were at last convinced, albeit with great difficulty, that he was what he was. 86.—“We meet practical jokes of this kind every day; but among the rest those are amusing which at first excite alarm and turn out well in the end; for even the victim laughs at himself when he sees that his fears were groundless.