“Margutte!” said the man in black, musingly, “Margutte!”
“You have read Pulci, I suppose?” said I.
“Yes, yes,” said the man in black, laughing; “I remember.”
“He might be rendered into English,” said I, “something in this style:—
‘To which Margutte answered with a sneer,
I like the blue no better than the black,
My faith consists alone in savoury cheer,
In roasted capons, and in potent sack;
But above all, in famous gin and clear,
Which often lays the Briton on his back,
With lump of sugar, and with lympth from well,
I drink it, and defy the fiends of hell.’”
“He! he! he!” said the man in black; “that is more than Mezzofante could have done for a stanza of Byron.”
“A clever man,” said I.
“Who?” said the man in black.
“Mezzofante di Bologna.”
“He! he! he!” said the man in black; “now I know that you are not a Gypsy, at least a soothsayer; no soothsayer would have said that—”