turned to Peppe with a scowl on his low brow.

"You are not so merry as you were this morning, fool," he scoffed.

Peppino squirmed a little, but his nature, schooled by the long habit of
jest, prompted a bold whimsicality in his reply.

"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