"
"Thou esteemest the bottom of the craft in which thou art required to
sail, as far more important than her ancient. Thou hast an eye for a keel,
but none for color; unless, indeed, as it may happen to be convenient to
seem that thou art not."
"Nay, Master Soothsayer, I suspect thee to be an officer of some of the
Holy Brotherhoods, sent in this guise to question us poor travellers to
our ruin!" answered Maso. "I am, what thou seest, but a poor mariner that
hath no better bark under him than this of Baptiste, and on a sea no
larger than a Swiss lake."
"Shrewdly observed," said Pippo, winking to those near him, though he so
little liked the eye and bearing of the other that he was not sorry to
turn to some new subject. "But what matters it, Signori, to be speaking of
the qualities of men! We are all alike, honorable, merciful, more disposed
to help others than to help ourselves, and so little given to selfishness,
that nature has been obliged to supply every mother's son of us with a
sort of goad, that shall be constantly pricking us on to look after our
own interests.
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