make no more of killing a man than a cow.  They will quarrel for straws, and stick a knife into a person’s body as readily as they would fell an ox.  It is a rare thing for a day to pass without brawls and bloodshed, and even murder.  They all pique themselves on being men of mettle, and they observe, too, some punctilios of the bravo; there is not one of them but has his guardian angel in the Plaza de San Francesco, whom he propitiates with sirloins, and beef tongues.

Scip. If you mean to dwell at such length, friend Berganza, on the characteristics and faults of all the masters you have had, we had better pray to heaven to grant us the gift of speech for a year; and even then I fear, at the rate you are going, you will not get through half your story.  One thing I beg to remark to you, of which you will see proof when I relate my own adventures; and that is, that some stories are pleasing in themselves, and others from the manner in which they are told; I mean that there are some which give satisfaction, though they are told without preambles and verbal adornments; while others require to be decked in that way and set off by expressive play of features, hands, and voice; whereby, instead of flat and insipid, they become pointed and agreeable.  Do not forget this hint, but profit by it in what you are about to say.

Berg. I will do so, if I can, and if I am not hindered by the great temptation I feel to speak; though, indeed, it appears to me that I shall have the greatest difficulty in constraining myself to moderation.

Scip. Be wary with your tongue, for from that member flow the greatest ills of human life.

Berg. Well, then, to go on with my story, my master taught me to carry a basket in my mouth, and to defend it against any one who should attempt to take it from me.  He also made me acquainted with the house in which his mistress lived, and thereby spared her servant the trouble of coming to the slaughter-house, for I used to carry to her the pieces of meat he had stolen over night.  Once as I was going along on this errand in the gray of the morning, I heard some one calling me by name from a window.  Looking up I saw an extremely pretty girl; she came down to the street door, and began to call me again.  I went up to her to see what she wanted of me; and what was it but to take away the meat I was carrying in the basket and put an old clog in its place?  “Be off with you,” she said, when she had done so; “and tell Nicholas the Pugnosed, your master, not to put trust in brutes.”  I might easily have made her give up what she had taken from me; but I would not put a cruel tooth on those delicate white hands.

Scip. You did quite right; for it is the prerogative of beauty always to be held in respect.