must know the welcome we gave him in the first instance, the solicitude with
which we have had him treated and tended since his illness, during which
time he could not possibly do aught to displease us, and yet they would see
him suddenly turned out of our house sick unto death. On the other hand he
has been so bad a man that he is sure not to confess or receive any of the
Church's sacraments; and dying thus unconfessed, he will be denied burial in
church, but will be cast out into some ditch like a dog; nay, 'twill be all
one if he do confess, for such and so horrible have been his crimes that no
friar or priest either will or can absolve him; and so, dying without
absolution, he will still be cast out into the ditch. In which case the folk
of these parts, who reprobate our trade as iniquitous and revile it all day
long, and would fain rob us, will seize their opportunity, and raise a
tumult, and make a raid upon our houses, crying:--'Away with these Lombard
whom the Church excludes from her pale;' and will certainly strip us of our
goods, and perhaps take our lives also; so that in any case we stand to lose
if this man die."

Ser Ciappelletto, who, as we said, lay close at hand while they thus spoke,
and whose hearing was sharpened, as is often the case, by his malady,
overheard all that they said about him. So he called them to him, and said
to them:--"I would not have you disquiet yourselves in regard of me, or
apprehend loss to befall you by my death. I have heard what you have said of
me and have no doubt that 'twould be as you say, if matters took the course
you anticipate; but I am minded that it shall be otherwise. I have committed
so many offences against God in the course of my life, that one more in the
hour of my death will make no difference whatever to the account. So seek
out and bring hither the worthiest and most holy friar you can find, and
leave me to settle your affairs and mine upon a sound and solid basis, with
which you may rest satisfied." The two brothers had not much hope of the
result, but yet they went to a friary and asked for a holy and discreet man