“The circumstances are scarcely as propitious—to me. Your Highness, though, seems in excellent goodhumour.”
Gian Maria looked at him angrily a moment. He was a slow-witted man, and he could devise no ready answer, no such cutting gibe as it would have pleasured him to administer. He walked leisurely to the fire-place, and leant his elbow on the overmantel.
“Your humour led you into saying some things for which I should be merciful if I had you whipped.”
“And, by the same reasoning, charitable if you had me hanged,” returned the fool dryly, a pale smile on his lips.
“Ah! You acknowledge it?” cried Gian Maria, never seeing the irony intended. “But I am a very clement prince, fool.”
“Proverbially clement,” the jester protested, but he did not succeed this time in excluding the sarcasm from his voice.
Gian Maria shot him a furious glance.
“Are you mocking me, animal? Keep your venomous tongue in bounds, or I'll have you deprived of it.”
Peppe's face turned grey at the threat, as well it might—for what should such a one as he do in the world without a tongue?
Seeing him dumb and stricken, the Duke continued: