"How much must we pay for that Saint Joseph's ass of yours?"
The mistress of the Saint Joseph's ass, seeing that the business was
on once more, had quietly approached, with her hands clasped under her
apron.
"Don't speak to me of it," cried _compare_ Neli making off across the
field. "Don't speak of it again, I don't want to hear a word."
"If you don't want it, let it be," replied the _padrone_. "If he does
not take it, some one else will. 'A sad wretch is he who has nothing
left to sell after the fair.'"
"And I will be heard, _santo diavolone_!" screamed the friend. "Can't
I be permitted to have my say?"
And he ran and caught _compare_ Neli by the jacket, then he came back
and whispered something in the _padrone's_ ear as the man was about to
return home with his young ass, and he flung his arm round his neck,
murmuring,--
"Look here! five _lire_ more or less, and if you don't sell it to-day
you won't find another blunderhead like my _compare_ to buy a beast,
which between you and me, isn't worth a cigar!"
He also embraced the young ass's mistress, whispered in her ear to win
her to his way of thinking. But she shrugged her shoulders and replied
with stern face,--
"'Tis my husband's business: I don't mix myself in it. But if he lets
it go for less than forty _lire_ he is a dunce, and that's what I say.
It cost us more than that."
"This morning I was crazy when I offered him thirty-five _lire_,"
resumed _compare_ Neli. "Has he found any other purchaser even at that
price? I reckon not. In the whole fair there aren't more than four
scabby rams and the Saint Joseph's ass. I'll give thirty _lire_ if
he'll take it."
"Take it," softly whispered the young ass's mistress to her husband,
and the tears came into her eyes. "We haven't made enough this evening
to buy our supper, and Turiddu has the fever again; he'll have to have
quinine."
"_Santo diavolone!_" screamed her husband, "if you don't get away from
here I'll give you a taste of this halter."
"Thirty-two and a half, there now!" cried the friend at last, giving
him a powerful shake to the collar.
"Neither you nor I! This time my advice ought to hold, by all the
saints in paradise! and I don't even ask for a glass of wine. Don't
you see the sun is set? What is the use of you both holding out any
longer?"
And he snatched the halter from the _padrone's_ hand, while, at the
same time, _compare_ Neli with an oath took out of his pocket his
closed fist clutching the thirty-five _lire_, and gave them to the man
without looking at them as if they took his liver with them. The
friend retired to one side with the mistress of the young ass to count
over the money on a rock, while the _padrone_ went off to another part
of the fair like a colt, cursing and beating himself with his fists.
But when he was at last rejoined by his wife, who was carefully
recounting the money in her handkerchief, he demanded,--
"Have you got it?"
"Yes, the whole of it; praised be San Gaetano![16] Now I'll go to the
apothecary's."
[16] The especial saint of the Provident.
"I got the best of them! I'd have let them have the beast for twenty
_lire_; asses of that color are _vigliacchi_--vile."