CHAPTER X
I FALL IN AGAIN WITH FRA PALAMONE
The Capuchin's employment was precisely what I have stated, though all
probability is against it. I was curious enough to watch him and could
make no mistake. He had a copious beard descending to his stomach, the
half snowy white, the half a lustrous black. Upon a depending twig he
had fixed a tin-edged mirror, in his hand was a small tooth-comb. With
this he raked his beard over and over again, occasionally dipping it in
a tin cup at his side. He looked in the glass, picked up a strand of
beard, examined it minutely underneath, dipped his comb and raked,
dipped and raked again. My gradual advance, due, as I have said, to
curiosity, not presumption, did not disconcert him at all; he began to
speak without so much as looking at me, whereby I was able to hope that
I was not recognised. On my side it had not taken long to ascertain that
I knew the Capuchin very well--if not by his white half-beard, then by
that jutting tusk of his--at once so loose and so menacing. It was that
very same who at the hospital of Rovigo had looked at me so hard, had
burnt my cheek with his hot breath and urged the value of his friendship
so clamantly against that of the Jew's; Fra Palamone, as I remembered
his name. Nor could I forget why I had decided against him, nor in what
terms. It had been because, when I had brought my handful of money
flooding out of my pocket, two ducats had been covered by this man's
foot and had been buried deep in his toes.
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