Page:Victor Hugo's Works (Guernsey Edition) v14.djvu/37

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No, something stranger than all these would be,

If they had happened,—he has found a mistress! [All burst out laughing.

My lady's pet baboon? Bertuccio

Graced with a mistress?

She is blind, of course?

And has a hump, I hope, to match his own?

What a rare breed 't will be, of two-humped babes,

Like Bactrian camels!

Bertuccio with a mistress! Why, the rogue

Ne'er yet made joke so monstrous or so pleasant! [They laugh again.

Laugh as you please, sirs; on my knightly faith,

He has a mistress,—and a rare one, too!

Nay, if you doubt my word— Here comes Dell' Aquila;

He knows, as well as I.

We'll question him.

Good-even to my poet. You walk late.

I tend my mistress: poets and lunatics,

You know, are her liege subjects.