'A return, with interest, on the little service I was able to render thee this morning. O, I am grateful, Cicada!'
The Fool, utterly bemused, squatted him down on the grass in a sudden inspiration, and so brought his wits to anchor. Bernardo fell on his knees beside him.
'What moved you to come and save me?' he said softly. 'What moved you?'
Cicada, disciplined to seize the worst occasion with an epigram, made a desperate effort to concentrate his parts on the present one.
'The wine in my head,' he mumbled, waggling that sage member. ''Tis the wet-nurse to all valour. I walked but out of the furnace a furlong to cool myself, and lo! I am a hero without knowing it.'
He looked up dimly, his face working and twitching in the moonlight.
'Recount, expound, and enucleate,' said he. 'From what has the Fool saved the Parablist?'
'From the deep waters,' said Bembo, 'into which he had entered, magnifying his height.'
The Fool fell a-chuckling.
'There was a hunter once,' said he, 'that thought he would sound his horn to a hymn, and behold! he was chasing the deer before he had fingered the first stops. Expound me the parable, Parablist. Thou preachest universal goodwill, they say?'