I will bring you water, and when you are dressed I will carry
you out into the laboratory."
The boys did not dare to go away till they had made up the fire. Then
they took themselves off, and as Pasquale let them out he treated them
to a final expression of his opinion. The tallest of the three was
bleeding from his nose, which had been brought into violent conjunction
with the skull of one of his companions. When the door was shut, and
they had gone a few steps along the footway, he stopped the others.
"We are glass-blowers' sons," he said, "and we have been beaten by that
swine of a porter. Let us be revenged on him. Even Zorzi would not have
dared to touch us, because he is a foreigner."
"We can do nothing," answered the smallest boy disconsolately. "If I
tell my father that we went to sleep, he will say that the porter
served us right, and I shall get another beating."
"You are cowards," said the first speaker. "But I am wounded," he
continued proudly, pointing to his nose. "I will go to the master and
ask redress. I will sit down before the door and wait for him."
"Do what you please," returned the others. "We will go home."
"You have no spirit of honour in you," said the tall boy contemptuously.
He turned his back on them in disdain, crossed the bridge and sat down
under the covered way in front of Beroviero's house.
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