Salabaetto lost no time in getting
aboard a bark with his five hundred florins of gold, and being come to
Naples, sent thence a remittance which fully discharged his obligation to
his masters that had entrusted him with the stuffs: he also paid all that
he owed to Pietro dello Canigiano and all his other creditors, and made
not a little merry with Canigiano over the trick he had played the
Sicilian lady. He then departed from Naples, and being minded to have
done with mercantile affairs, betook him to Ferrara.
Jancofiore, surprised at first by Salabaetto's disappearance from
Palermo, waxed after a while suspicious; and, when she had waited fully
two months, seeing that he did not return, she caused the broker to break
open the store-rooms. And trying first of all the casks, she found them
full of sea-water, save that in each there was perhaps a hog's-head of
oil floating on the surface. Then undoing the bales, she found them all,
save two that contained stuffs, full of tow, and in short their whole
contents put together were not worth more than two hundred florins.
Wherefore Jancofiore, knowing herself to have been outdone, regretted
long and bitterly the five hundred florins of gold that she had refunded,
and still more the thousand that she had lent, repeating many a time to
herself:--Who with a Tuscan has to do, Had need of eyesight quick and
true. Thus, left with the loss and the laugh against her, she discovered
that there were others as knowing as she.
Pages:
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374