How Piovano Arlotto got his Place by the Fire.
Piovano Arlotto, returning from Casentino one Sunday evening, worn out and wet through (for it was raining heavily), dismounted before the inn at Pontassieve and went in, to dry himself at the fire. But, as it happened, there were over thirty villagers present, drinking and playing cards, and they were crowded so closely about the fire that he could not get near it, nor would they make room for him, though he asked them. At last, mine host, who knew him for a fellow of infinite jest, said to him, “Sir priest, why are ye so sad this evening, quite contrary to your nature? If there be aught troubling ye, tell us, for there is nothing we would not do for ye.” The priest said, “I am in evil case, for I have lost, from this wallet, fourteen lire of small change, and eighteen gold florins. Yet I have hope of finding them again; for I think ’tis but within the last five miles I dropped them, and the weather is so bad, there is none will travel that road after me to-night. And if ye will do me a service, then, to-morrow morning if it rain not, do thou come, or send a man back along the road with me to find it.” Scarcely had the priest finished speaking, when those countrymen went out softly, by twos and fours, so that at the last there was none left, and went back along the road in the rain, hoping to find the money, leaving the priest to take the best place by the fire.