Shortly after this, with a few words of polite excuse, he broke up the
table and retired with his partner. The rest of the company gave itself
up to pleasures which were as zestful as they were free. It may be
imagined that I had little taste for such simple sports as these worthy
persons could devise. I sat, an unhappy spectator of their gambols--but
a diversion of a vigorous kind was at hand. In the midst of the
scuffling and babel of voices in the kitchen I heard the strident tones
of the cavaliere, evidently in a great rage.
"Where is that dastardly dog? Where is that villain of a cook?" I heard
him roar on the stairs. "Bring me that scoundrel that I may slit his
ears!" At this moment he burst through the doors, a terrific spectacle
of fury, his eyes burning like fires, his face inflamed, his drawn sword
in his hand. The company scattered to the walls or dived beneath the
tables, chairs were overturned, the maids began to scream.
He glared about him at the desert he had made. "Produce me the cook, you
knaves," cried he, "or I mow you down like thistles." The master-cook's
face peeped through the gently opened door, and the cavaliere, across
the room in two strides, seized his victim by the ear and pulled him
headlong into the kitchen. "Hound!" he roared, "and son of a hound! Take
the punishment you have earned."
"Sir, sir!" says the unhappy cook, "what have I done?"
"Done!" cries the cavaliere, screwing him unmercifully by the ear, "you
have compassed my death by your infernal arts.
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