Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 2.djvu/62

Rh and that he had better go to another goldsmith. Without further provocation he retorted that I was a donkey; whereupon I said that he was not speaking the truth; that I was a better man than he in every respect, but that if he kept on irritating me I would give him harder kicks than any donkey could. He related the matter to the Cardinal, and painted me as black as the devil in hell. Two days afterwards I shot a wild pigeon in a cleft high up behind the palace. The bird was brooding in that cleft, and I had often seen a goldsmith named Giovan Francesco della Tacca, from Milan, fire at it; but he never hit it. On the day when I shot it, the pigeon scarcely showed its head, being suspicious because it had been so often fired at. Now this Giovan Francesco and I were rivals in shooting wildfowl; and some gentlemen of my acquaintance, who happened to be at my shop, called my attention, saying: "Up there is Giovan Francesco della Tacca's pigeon, at which he has so often fired; look now, the poor creature is so frightened that it hardly ventures to put its head out." I raised my eyes, and said: "That morsel of its head is quite enough for me to shoot it by, if it only stays till I can point my gun/' The gentlemen protested that even the man who invented firearms could not hit it. I replied: "I bet a bottle of that excellent Greek wine Palombo the host keeps, that if it keeps quiet long enough for me to point my good Broccardo (so I used to call my gun), I will hit it in that portion of its head which it is showing." So I aimed my gun, elevating my arms, and using no other rest, and did what I had