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But you must allow me time to go home and get the money from the major-domo. Keep the fish, therefore, so long, and I will return with the twenty ducats for it." And majestically Don Bempo made himself a path through the crowd, which laughingly stepped aside for him, shouting: "Gudgeons for the Spanish gentleman! Viva Don Bempo, who pays twenty ducats for a fish!"
That was indeed a very desirable object, but twenty ducats was still an enormous price, and was not at all reconcilable with the recommended economy. At any rate he dared not buy the fish without first consulting the major-domo of the duke. "You will not, then, sell this fish for twelve ducats?" asked Don Bempo, just as Gianettino had unnoticedly approached.
"It is Signor Gianettino, the cook of the French ambassador, and I am ruined!" groaned Don Bempo, staggering back. "Yes, it is the cook of his excellency the cardinal!" cried the crowd. "And the cardinal is an honorable man!" "He is no Spanish niggard!" "He does not haggle for a giant fish; he pays more than is demanded!"
It was certainly a very important affair with which the Spanish cook Don Bempo was occupied, as it concerned the purchase of a fish that a countryman had brought to the city, of such a monstrous size and weight that the like had never been seen there. It was the most remarkable specimen with which the Roman fish-market had ever been honored.
No one had before remarked him in the crowd, for they had been all eyes and ears for Don Bempo, and hence every one supposed that he had only just then arrived. The shrewd chief cook also assumed the appearance of having only accidentally passed that way without the intention of buying any thing.
Proud and happy marched Signor Gianettino through the streets, accompanied by his gigantic fish, and followed by the shouts of a Roman mob. Humiliated, with eyes cast down, with rage in his heart sneaked Don Bempo toward the Spanish ambassador's hotel, and long heard behind him the whistling, laughter, and catcalls of the Roman people. Cardinal Bernis was in his boudoir.
And urgently pushing back Don Bempo, Gianettino solemnly marched through the crowd with his retinue, the people readily making a path for him and cheering him as he went. It was a brilliant triumph in the person of the chief cook of their ambassador, which the French celebrated to-day; it was a shameful defeat which Spain suffered to-day in the person of her ambassador's chief cook.
But the lucky fisherman was fully aware of the extraordinary beauty of his fish, and in his arrogant pride demanded twenty ducats for it. That was what troubled Don Bempo.
At this moment a man was seen making his way through the crowd; thrusting right and left with his elbows, he incessantly pushed on, and, just as Signor Gianettino had fairly got his troop in motion, the man, who was no other than Don Bempo, succeeded in reaching the fisherman's table. "Here, I bring you the twenty ducats," he proudly called out.
That was what Don Bempo was now considering, and what made him waver in his first determination not to buy the fish. There was only this one gigantic fish in the market; and, if he bought it, Signor Gianettino, his enemy, of course, could not possess it; the triumph of the day would then inure to the Spanish embassy, and Don Bempo would come off conqueror.
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