'Nay, Magnificent, but to the utterances of the little Parablist of San Zeno.'
'O hog! now by the Mass, I say, they had been better pricked to thy business. O ciacco, I tell thee thy Parablist was like, in another moment, to have addressed thee out of a burning bush. What! I would drink, swine! And, harkee, somewhere from those deep vats of thine the perfume of an old wine of Cana rises to my nostrils. I say no more. Despatch!'
The landlord, abasing himself outwardly, took solace of a private curse as he turned into the shadow of his porch—
'These skipjacks of the Sforzas! limbs of a country churl!'
Something lithe and gripping sprang upon his back as he muttered, making him roar out; and the chirrup of a great cricket shrilled in his ear—
'Biting limbs! clawing, hooking, scoring limbs! ha-ha, hee-hee, ho-bir-r-r-r!'
Boniface, sweating with panic, wriggled to shake off his incubus. It clung to him toe and claw. Slewing his gross head, he saw, squatted upon his shoulders, a manikin in green livery, a monstrous grasshopper in seeming.
'Messer Fool,' he gurgled—'dear my lord's most honoured jester!' (he was essaying all the time to stagger with his burden out of earshot)—'prithee spare to damn a poor fellow for a hasty word under provocation! Prithee, sweet Messer Fool!'
The little creature, sitting him as a frog a pike, hooked its small talons into the corners of his eyes.
'Provocation!' it laughed, rocking—'provocation by his grandness to a guts! If I fail to baste thee on a spit for it, call me not Cicada!'