This infallible fluid, handed down
for generations in the family of my ancestor, the High Priest of Isis--"
The bray of a neighbouring show-man's trumpet cut him short, and
yielding to circumstances he drew back the curtain, and a tumbling-girl
sprang out and began her antics on the front of the stage.
"What did he say was the price of that drink, Giannina?" asked a young
maid-servant pulling her neighbour's sleeve.
"Are you thinking of buying it for Pietrino, my beauty?" the other
returned with a laugh. "Believe me, it is a sound proverb that says:
When the fruit is ripe it falls of itself."
The girl drew away angrily, and the quack took up his harangue:--"The
same philter, ladies and gentlemen--though in confessing it I betray a
professional secret--the same philter, I declare to you on the honour of
a nobleman, whereby, in your own city, a lady no longer young and no way
remarkable in looks or station, has captured and subjugated the
affections of one so high, so exalted, so above all others in beauty,
rank, wealth, power and dignities--"
"Oh, oh, that's the Duke!" sniggered a voice in the crowd.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I name no names!" cried the quack impressively.
"No need to," retorted the voice.
"They do say, though, she gave him something to drink," said a young
woman to a youth in a clerk's dress. "The saying is she studied medicine
with the Turks."
"The Moors, you mean," said the clerk with an air of superiority.
"Well, they say her mother was a Turkey slave and her father a murderer
from the Sultan's galleys.
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