THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER
80.—" We often laugh also when a man admits everything that
is said to him and more too, but pretends to take it in a different
sense. As when Captain Peralta was brought out to fight a duel
with Aldana, and Captain Molart294 (who was Aldana's second)
asked Peralta on his oath if he wore any amulets or charms to
keep him from being wounded; Peralta swore that he wore no
amulets or charms or relics or objects of devotion in which he
had faith. Whereupon, to taunt him with being a heretic, Mo-
lart said: 'Do not trouble yourself about it, for without your
oath I believe you have no faith in Christ himself.'295
" Moreover it is a fine thing to use metaphors seasonably in such cases. As when our friend master Marcantonio said to Bot- tone da Cesena,296 who was goading him with words: ' Bottone, Bottone, you will one day be the button (bottone), and your button-hole will be the halter.' Another time, master Marcan- tonio having composed a very long comedy in several acts, this same Bottone said to master Marcantonio: 'To play your comedy, all the timber there is in Slavonia will be needed for the setting.' Master Marcantonio replied: 'While for the setting of your tragedy, three sticks will be quite enough.'297
81.—"We often use a word in which there is a hidden meaning remote from the one we seem to intend. As was done by my lord Prefect here, on hearing mention of a certain captain who in his time had for the most part been defeated but just then had chanced to win. And the speaker telling that when the captain made his entry into the place in question, he had on a very beautiful crimson velvet doublet, which he always wore after his victories, my lord Prefect said: ' It must be new.'
"Nor is there less laughter when we reply to something that our interlocutor has not said, or pretend to believe he has done something that he has not but ought to have done." As when Andrea Coscia,298 having gone to visit a gentleman who rudely kept his seat and left his guest to stand, said: ' Since your Lordship commands me, I will sit down to obey you;' and so sat down.299
82.—" We laugh also when a man accuses himself of some fault humourously. As when I told my lord Duke's chaplain the other day that my lord Cardinal300 had a chaplain who said 152
