a mouth that blabs not, and that ’twas on no pippin, as many a dolt does, but on the good long pumpkin that you learned your A B C; and, if I mistake not, you were baptized on a Sunday;(6) and though Bruno has told me that ’twas medicine you studied there, ’tis my opinion that you there studied the art of catching men, of which, what with your wisdom and your startling revelations, you are the greatest master that ever I knew.”  He would have said more, but the doctor, turning to Bruno, broke in with:—­“Ah! what it is to consort and converse with the wise!  Who but this worthy man would thus have read my mind through and through?  Less quick by far to rate me at my true worth wast thou.  But what said I when thou toldst me that Buffalmacco delighted to converse with sages?  Confess now; have I not kept my word?” “Verily,” quoth Bruno, “you have more than kept it.”  Then, addressing Buffalmacco:—­“Ah!” cried the Master, “what hadst thou said, hadst thou seen me at Bologna, where there was none, great or small, doctor or scholar, but was devoted to me, so well wist I how to entertain them with my words of wisdom.  Nay more; let me tell thee that there was never a word I spoke but set every one a laughing, so great was the pleasure it gave them.  And at my departure they all deplored it most bitterly, and would have had me remain, and by way of inducement went so far as to propose that I should be sole lecturer to all the students in medicine that were there; which offer I declined, for that I was minded to return hither, having vast estates here, that have ever belonged to my family; which, accordingly, I did.”  Quoth then Bruno to Buffalmacco:—­“How shews it, now, man?  Thou didst not believe me when I told thee what he was.  By the Gospels there is never a physician in this city that has the lore of ass’s urine by heart as he has:  verily, thou wouldst not find his like between here and the gates of Paris.  Now see if thou canst help doing as he would have thee.” “’Tis even as Bruno says,” observed the doctor, “but I am not understood here.  You Florentines are somewhat slow of wit.  Would you could see me in my proper element, among a company of doctors!” Whereupon:—­“Of a truth, Master,” quoth Buffalmacco, “your lore far exceeds any I should ever have imputed to you; wherefore, addressing you as ’tis meet to address a man of your wisdom, I give you disjointedly to understand that without fail I will procure your enrolment in our company.”

After this promise the honours lavished by the doctor upon the two men grew and multiplied; in return for which they diverted themselves by setting him a prancing upon every wildest chimera in the world; and promised, among other matters, to give him by way of mistress, the Countess of Civillari,(7) whom they averred to be the goodliest creature to be found in all the Netherlands of the human race; and the doctor asking who this Countess might be:—­“Mature my gherkin,” quoth Buffalmacco, “she is indeed a very great