The fool did not move, and all around laughed the more at the jest which they thought he was perpetuating. Still he remained motionless; at last the headsman went up to him, and raising Gonella from the ground, discovered that he was dead. The drop of water had had all the effect of the sharpest axe; and the spectators went home repeating to one another, “A shocking bad joke, indeed!” Such was the end of Gonella, a man proud of his family name. It is a name not unknown to our own times, and it is borne by an individual of higher dignity than the Florentine fool. Monseigneur de Gonella is the Papal Nuncio at Brussels, and there is now wisdom in the family, as well as wit. Again, a practical joke had once wellnigh killed Menicucci, the jester to the Grand Duke Ferdinand I., in Florence. Ferdinand loved to surround himself with men who could in any way administer to his enjoyment, and Menicucci, who dubbed himself Count, took up the office of parasite and fool, that he might be in continual intercourse with the aristocracy. One of his follies was in the conviction he entertained, that there was not a corner of the globe in which his name and fame were not known; and that Kings and Emperors were dying of envy to make his acquaintance. In the Grand Duke’s household he never permitted any official to take precedence of him; and, as indicative of his superiority, he once mounted to the top of a high closet in the great stone hall of the palace, where he insisted that the pages should serve him at dinner. They humoured him for awhile; but while the mock Count was finishing his repast, they carried off the ladder by which he had mounted, filled the hall with damp straw, to which they set fire, and would have left the screaming fool to be suffocated, but for the Archduke, who, hearing his cries, went to his assistance, and after enjoying the joke for awhile, ordered the choking “Count” to be released.