So they went together to the castle, and Virgilio said to the old signore:
“I have found a young girl who plays ball so well, that I am anxious to try her game against that of your young man.”
“What will you bet on her?” asked the old signore.
“A thousand crowns,” replied Virgilio.
“Done!” was the response.
But when they met on the ground the youth and the girl fell in love at first sight to the last degree, and not being much troubled with modesty, told one another so—schiettamente e senza preamboli—plainly, without prelude, preamble, or preface, as is the way and wont of professionals or show-people, wherein they showed their common sense of the value of time, which is to them as money.
Then they began to play, and it was in the old fashion, with two balls at once, each player tossing one to the other with the drum. [110a] And it came to pass that in the instant that the two goblins beheld one another from afar they also fell in love. And as fairies and folletti do everything, when they will, a thousand times more rapidly than human beings, and as neither could or would conquer in the game, they both cried:
“Let us be for ever united in love.”
So the two balls met with a bump half-way in their course and fell to the ground as one, while the fays embraced; and at the same instant the youth and the girl, unable to suppress their feelings, rushed into one another’s arms and began to kiss, and Virgilio and the old signore roared with laughter, the latter having a second attack of merriment when Virgilio explained to him the entire trick and plot.
Then, as it was a drawn game, the thousand crowns were by common consent bestowed on the young couple, who were married to their hearts’ content, having one festa after another, at which all the guests went from bottle to bottle, even as the ass of a dealer in pottery goeth from door to door, or as the pig of Saint Antonio went from house to house. Amen!