drive the full force of his arguments through the jester's skull. At
that the fool, being a very coward, had fled incontinently through the
trees.

Running, like the fool he was, with his head turned to learn whether the
good father followed him, he never saw the figure that lay half-hidden in
the bracken, and might never have guessed its presence but that tripping
over it he shot forward, with a tinkle of bells, on to his crooked nose.

He sat up with a groan, which was answered by an oath from the man into
whose sides he had dug his flying feet. The two looked at one another in
surprise, tempered with anger in the one and dismay in the other.

"A good awakening to you, noble sir," quoth the fool politely; for by the
mien and inches of the man he had roused, he thought that courtesy might
serve him best.

The other eyed him with interest, as well he might; for an odder figure
it would be hard to find in Italy.

Hunched of back, under-sized, and fragile of limb, he was arrayed in
doublet, hose and hood, the half of which was black the other crimson,
whilst on his shoulders fell from that same hood--which tightly framed
his ugly little face--a foliated cape, from every point of which there
hung a tiny silver bell that glimmered in the sunlight, and tinkled as he
moved. From under bulging brows a pair of bright eyes, set wide as an
owl's, took up the mischievous humour of his prodigious mouth.

"A curse on you and him that sent you," was the answering greeting he
received. Then the man checked his anger and broke into a laugh at sight