“ Il cavallo! Il Diavolo! ” was now shouted on all sides by the idle rascals who gathered from all quarters of the piazza, and was echoed in tones of alarm by the stall-keepers, whose vested interests seemed in some danger; while the doctor, out of his wits with confused terror at the Devil, the possible stoning, and the escape of his horse, took to his heels with spectacles on nose, lathered face, and the shaving-cloth about his neck, crying—“Stop him! stop him! for a powder—a florin—stop him for a florin!” while the lads, outstripping him, clapped their hands and shouted encouragement to the runaway.
The cerretano , who had not bargained for the flight of his monkey along with the horse, had caught up his petticoats with much celerity, and showed a pair of parti-coloured hose above his contadina ’s shoes, far in advance of the doctor. And away went the grotesque race up the Corso degli Adimari—the horse with the singular jockey, the contadina with the remarkable hose, and the doctor in lather and spectacles, with furred mantle outflying.
It was a scene such as Florentines loved, from the potent and reverend signor going to council in his lucco , down to the grinning youngster, who felt himself master of all situations when his bag was filled with smooth stones from the convenient dry bed of the torrent. The grey-headed Domenico Cennini laughed no less heartily than the younger men, and Nello was triumphantly secure of the general admiration.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, snapping his fingers when the first burst of laughter was subsiding. “I have cleared my piazza of that unsavoury flytrap, mi pare . Maestro Tacco will no more come here again to sit for patients than he will take to licking marble for his dinner.”