'Narcisso!'
The hulking creature grinned, and stabbed a thumb over his shoulder.
'Hist! him you speak of's out there, a-seeking your worship.'
'Seeking me? Messer Bembo?'
'Why not? A' met him at the town gate half-drowned, with his Patch to heel. The report of his running was got abroad, and, thinks I to myself, here's luck to my masters. To take him on the hop of grievance like——'
Montano seemed to sip the phrase:—
'Exactly: on the hop of grievance. Well?'
'Why, I spoke him fair: "Whither away, master?" A' spat a saintly word—'twere a curse in a sinner—and sprang back, a' did, glaring at me. But the great Fool pushed him by. "You're the man," says he. "Desperation knows its fellows. Where's Montano?" "Why, what would you with him?" says I, taken off my guard. "A salve for his wounds," he answered. And so I considered a bit, and brought 'em on, and there they wait.'
Visconti uttered a furious oath, but Lampugnani hushed him down.
'Didst well, pretty innocence,' he said to Narcisso. 'The hop of grievance?—never a riper moment. Show in your friends.'