He had all but asked what was to be required of him in exchange for this, when suddenly he bethought him--with the knavish philosophy adversity had taught him--that were he told for what it was intended that the wine should bribe him, and did the business suit him not, he should, in the confession of it, lose the wine; whilst did he but hold his peace until he had drunk, it would be his thereafter to please himself about the business when it came to be proposed.
He composed his rugged features into the rude semblance of a smile.
"Sweet young sir," he murmured, "sweet, gentle and most illustrious lord, I would share a hogshead with such a nobleman as you." "I am to take it that you will drink ?" quoth Gonzaga, who had scarce known what to make of the man's last words.
"Body of Bacchus! Yes.

I'll drink with you gentile signorino, until your purse be empty or the world run dry." And he leered a mixture of mockery and satisfaction.
Gonzaga, still half uncertain of his ground, called the taverner and bade him bring a flagon of his best.

While Luciano was about the fetching of the wine, constraint sat upon that oddly discordant pair.
"It is a chill night," commented Gonzaga presently, seating himself opposite his swashbuckler.
"Young sir, your wits have lost their edge.

The night is warm.
"I said," spluttered Gonzaga, who was unused to contradiction from his inferiors, and wished now to assert himself, "that the night is chill." "You lied, then," returned the other, with a fresh leer, "for, as I answered you, the night is warm.

Piaghe di Cristo! I am an ill man to contradict, my pretty gallant, and if I say the night is warm, warm it shall be though there be snow on Mount Vesuvius." The courtier turned pink at that, and but for the arrival of the taverner with the wine, it is possible he might have done an unconscionable rashness.