Thou knowest how I have sorrowed for the boy, but next to his loss I could mourn over thee--aye, more bitterly than over any other of the fallen!" The hard breathing of the Bravo was audible, but still he spoke not.
"Jacopo," continued the anxious fisherman, "do not mistake me.

The pity of the suffering and poor is not like the scorn of the rich and worldly.
If I touch a sore, I do not bruise it with my heel.

Thy present pain is better than the greatest of all thy former joys." "Enough, old man," said the other in a smothered voice, "thy words are forgotten.

Eat without fear, for the offering is bought with earnings as pure as the gleanings of a mendicant friar." "I will trust to the kindness of St.Anthony and the fortune of my hook," simply returned Antonio.

"'Tis common for us of the Lagunes to go to a supperless bed: take away the basket, good Jacopo, and let us speak of other things." The Bravo ceased to press his food upon the fisherman.