But the joyous company assembled in the palace at Murano find divers other forms of recreation beside story-telling. They dance and they sing ballads, which are for the most part in praise of the gracious Signora Lucretia, but the chief byplay of the entertainment consists in the setting and solving of riddles. As soon as a fable is brought to an end the narrator is always called upon by the Signora to complete the task by propounding an enigma. This is then duly set forth in puzzling verses, put together as a rule in terms obscure enough to baffle solution, often entirely senseless, and now and again of a character indecent enough to call down upon the propounder the Signora’s rebuke on account of the seeming impropriety of the subject. In fact, a certain number of these enigmas are broad examples of the _double entendre_. The first reading of them makes one wonder how such matter could ever have been put in print, and agree fully with the anger of the Signora, but when the graceful and modest damsel, who may have been the author, proceeds to give the true explanation of her riddle she never fails to demonstrate clearly to the gentle company that her enigma, from beginning to end, is entirely free from all that is unseemly. In “French and English” Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton tells a story illustrating the late survival of this sort of witticism in France. In the early days of Louis Philippe, on one occasion when the court was at Eu, the mayor of the town and certain other local notables were bidden to _déjeuner_ at the chateau, and after the banquet the mayor, in accordance with an old French fashion, asked leave to sing a song of his own making. This composition had two meanings, one lying on the surface and perfectly innocent, and the other, slightly veiled, which, though not immoral, was prodigiously indecent. When the true nature of the song was realized, there was for a second or two silence and confusion amongst the company, but at last, by good luck, someone laughed. The dangerous point was safely rounded, and the mayor brought his song to an end amidst loud applause. When he published his translation into French of the second part of the “Notti,” Pierre de la Rivey made alterations in almost all the enigmas therein contained, and re-wrote many of those which had already been translated by Louveau, but in neither case did his work tend to make them more decent. In reading over the enigmas as Straparola left them one often feels that the line of reticence, recognized by contemporary decorum, has been crossed, otherwise there would be no need for the ladies to hide their faces, or for the Signora to visit the culprit for the time being with her well-deserved rebuke. But Straparola’s untouched work is almost decent compared with De la Rivey’s emendations.