"I know nothing! I know nothing! Absolutely nothing!" Signora Cecca exclaimed. "Try sounding Puttini. Try Signor Giacomo. And pray don't ask me anything more." Again! Pasotti's face shone at the prospect of getting the unlucky Signor Giacomo into his clutches. Thus the eyes of a falcon might shine at the joyous prospect of snatching a frog, and of holding him in his claws, to toy with at pleasure. Presently he took his departure well satisfied with everything save with the chalky cake, which lay like lead in his stomach.
Casa Puttini, which, within its minute, genteel appearance, resembled the little old gentleman who ruled it, in a black coat and white stock, stood just below that stately pile, Casa Pasotti, on the road to Albogasio Inferiore. The falcon went there in the afternoon, towards five o'clock, with a cunning expression on his face. He knocked at the door and then listened. He was there! The unlucky frog was there! And he was quarrelling as usual with the perfidious servant. Pasotti knocked louder. "Go down!" said Signor Giacomo, but Marianna would not hear of going down to open the door. "Go down! I am the master!" It was all in vain. Pasotti knocked again, knocked like a battering-ram. "Who the devil can it be!" scolded Puttini, and he came down puffing: "Apff! apff!" to open the door. "Oh, most gracious Controller!" said he winking hard, and raising his eyebrows pathetically. "Pray excuse me! That awful servant! I am quite worn out! You would not believe the things that go on in this house!"
"That is a lie!" Marianna cried from above.
"Hold your tongue, you!" And then Signor Giacomo began telling his woes, stopping from time to time to silence the protests of the invisible servant.
"Just fancy! This morning I went to Lugano. I got home about three o'clock. On the doorstep—look there—I saw some splashes. Hold your tongue, you! I did not heed them, and went straight in. At the head of the kitchen-stairs there were more splashes. Be quiet, will you?—What can have been spilled? said I to myself, and I stooped and touched the spots with my finger. It was something greasy; I smelt it, it was oil. Then I followed the splashes, touching and sniffing, sniffing and touching. All oil, most gracious Controller! So I said to myself again: Either it came in, or it went out. If it came in, the farmer brought it, and in that case there will be splashes outside the door, and they will extend upwards, if it went out, that means that this accursed.... Hold your tongue, I say!... took it to S. Mamette and sold it, and then the splashes outside will extend downwards. So back I went, always following the splashes and presently I found myself here at the door. Most gracious Controller, those splashes all extended downwards! That d——"
At this point the servant's voice rang out like the bell on an alarm-clock, and no "hold your tongue" was strong enough to stem that shrill flow of angry words. Pasotti tried, and not succeeding, flew into a passion himself, and shouted: "Oh, you cheat!" following up that title with a string of insults, at each of which Signor Giacomo gave a low grunt of satisfaction. "Yes, yes, give it to her! that's right! I am much obliged to you. Yes, shout,—that's right. You torment, you!—I am really greatly obliged to you, most gracious Controller! Really greatly obliged!"
When Marianna had been overpowered and reduced to silence, Pasotti told Signor Giacomo that he must speak a few words with him. "I am really not up to it," the little man complained. "You must excuse me, for I feel quite ill."
"Not up to it, not up to it, indeed!" shouted Marianna who had revived. "You had better tell us how you wear yourself out going up to Castello at night to see the girls!"
"Hold your tongue," Puttini shrieked, while Pasotti exclaimed, with a fiendish grin: "What, what, what!" Seeing that Puttini was becoming furious, he took him by the arm, and calming him with peaceful and affectionate language, dragged him away to his own house where he at once summoned his wife, and started a game of three-handed tarocchi, with the purpose of soothing the poor frog, and getting a firmer grip of him.