“I hope,” said Signor Gianettino to Don Bempo, who still convulsively grasped the fish, “that you will now take your hands from my property and leave me to go my way without further hindrance. It is not noble to lay hands on the goods of another, Don Bempo, and this fish is mine!”
“But this is contrary to all international law!” exclaimed the enraged Don Bempo. “You forget, signor, that you insult my master, that you insult Spain, by withholding from me by main force what I have purchased in the name of Spain.”
“France will never stand second to Spain!” proudly responded Gianettino, “and where Spain offers twenty ducats, France pays six-and-thirty!—Forward, my youngsters! To the kitchen of the French ambassador!”
And urgently pushing back Don Bempo, Gianettino solemnly marched through the crowd with his retinue, the people readily making a path for him and cheering him as he went.
It was a brilliant triumph in the person of the chief cook of their ambassador, which the French celebrated to-day; it was a shameful defeat which Spain suffered to-day in the person of her ambassador’s chief cook.
Proud and happy marched Signor Gianettino through the streets, accompanied by his gigantic fish, and followed by the shouts of a Roman mob.
Humiliated, with eyes cast down, with rage in his heart sneaked Don Bempo toward the Spanish ambassador’s hotel, and long heard behind him the whistling, laughter, and catcalls of the Roman people.
THE FISH FEUD
Cardinal Bernis was in his boudoir. Before him lay the list of those persons whom he had invited to his entertainment of the next day, and he saw with proud satisfaction that all had accepted his invitation.