At another moment he was forced away towards the boundary of the piazza, where the more stationary candidates for attention and small coin had judiciously placed themselves, in order to be safe in their rear.
Among these Tito recognised his acquaintance Bratti, who stood with his back against a pillar, and his mouth pursed up in disdainful silence, eyeing everyone who approached him with a cold glance of superiority, and keeping his hand fast on a serge covering which concealed the contents of the basket slung before him.
Rather surprised at a deportment so unusual in an anxious trader, Tito went nearer and saw two women go up to Bratti’s basket with a look of curiosity, whereupon the pedlar drew the covering tighter, and looked another way. It was quite too provoking, and one of the women was fain to ask what there was in his basket?
“Before I answer that, Monna, I must know whether you mean to buy. I can’t show such wares as mine in this fair for every fly to settle on and pay nothing. My goods are a little too choice for that. Besides, I’ve only two left, and I’ve no mind to soil them; for with the chances of the pestilence that wise men talk of, there is likelihood of their being worth their weight in gold. No, no: andate con Dio .”
The two women looked at each other.
“And what may be the price?” said the second.
“Not within what you are likely to have in your purse, buona donna,” said Bratti, in a compassionately supercilious tone. “I recommend you to trust in Messer Domeneddio and the saints: poor people can do no better for themselves.”
“Not so poor!” said the second woman, indignantly, drawing out her moneybag. “Come, now! what do you say to a grosso?”