“They are so dull,” objected a lively lady. “I went up Tiber twice as fast last time with but five mules and an ass.”
“Nay, that is soon mended,” cried a gallant, and jumping ashore he drew his sword, and despite the remonstrances of the drivers, went down the dozen buffaloes goading them.
They snorted and whisked their tails, and went no faster, at which the boat-load laughed loud and long: finally he goaded a patriarch bull, who turned instantly on the sword, sent his long horns clean through the spark, and with a furious jerk of his prodigious neck sent him flying over his head into the air. He described a bold parabola and fell sitting, and unconsciously waving his glittering blade, into the yellow Tiber. The laughing ladies screamed and wrung their hands, all but Gerard's fair. She uttered something very like an oath, and seizing the helm steered the boat out, and the gallant came up sputtering, griped the gunwale, and was drawn in dripping.
He glared round him confusedly. “I understand not that,” said he, a little peevishly; puzzled, and therefore, it would seem, discontented. At which, finding he was by some strange accident not slain, his doublet being perforated, instead of his body, they began to laugh again louder than ever.
“What are ye cackling at?” remonstrated the spark, “I desire to know how 'tis that one moment a gentleman is out yonder a pricking of African beef, and the next moment—”
Gerard's lady. “Disporting in his native stream.”
“Tell him not, a soul of ye,” cried Vanucci. “Let him find out 's own riddle.”
Confound ye all. I might puzzle my brains till doomsday, I should ne'er find it out. Also, where is my sword?
Gerard's lady. “Ask Tiber! Your best way, signor, will be to do it over again; and, in a word, keep pricking of Afric's beef, till your mind receives light. So shall you comprehend the matter by degrees, as lawyers mount heaven, and buffaloes Tiber.”
Here a chevalier remarked that the last speaker transcended the sons of Adam as much in wit as she did the daughters of Eve in beauty.