'Well, Folly and Love were well mated. Have you done? I am going to my books.'
He yawned, and stretched himself, and rose.
'I will show you to the door, says Folly,' chirped Cicada, and skipped about the other as he went, with a mincing affectation of ceremonial. But when they were got out of immediate sight and hearing of Bernardo into the front chamber, like a wolf the Fool snapped upon the philosopher, and pinned him into a corner.
'Understood'st my fable well enough,' he grated, in a rapid whisper. 'What! I have waited this opportunity a day or two. Now the stopper is out, let us flow.'
Montano, taken by surprise, was seized with a tremor of irresolution. He returned the Fool's gaze with a frown uncertain, sullen, eager all in one.
'Flow, then,' he muttered, after a little.
'I flow,' went on the other, 'oil and verjuice combined. Imprimis, think not that because I read I would betray thee. Ay, ay—no need to start, sir. Thou shalt not quit playing with thy doll for me; nay, nor dressing and goring it, if thou wilt, with triangles of steel. O, I saw!—the face and the slashes in it, too. I have not since been so ill, like him there, as to read a phantasy out of fact. What then? Would ye silence me?'
'Go on,' whispered Montano hoarsely.
'Well, I flow,' returned the Fool. 'Did I not tell thee candour was the best part of wisdom? Learn by it, then. I have marked thee of late; O, trust me, I have marked thee, thy hints and insinuations. And hereby by folly I swear, could once I think my master wax to such impressions, I would kill him where he stands, and damn my soul to send his uncorrupt to heaven. You sneer? Sneer on. Why, I could have laughed just now to see you, tortuous, sound his sweet candid shallows, where every pebble's plain. Do your own work, I'll not speak or care. You shall not have him to it, that's all. Sooner shall the heavens fall, than he be led by you to poison Galeazzo. Is that plain?'
It was so plain, that the philosopher gasped vainly for a retort.