What do you suppose he did? He made them pay his share, that is, twenty per cent, and nothing more. "The rest," he said, "you can pay another year to the prince; now you may depart."
Then he went back to the prince. "What have you done, Firrazzanu? Have you collected all the rents?" "What are you talking about collecting! I had hard work to collect my share." "What do you mean?" "I collected with difficulty the twenty per cent, that belonged to me; your share will be paid next year." The prince was obliged to laugh at last, and Firrazzanu went away happy and satisfied.9
Another time the prince went hunting, and ordered Firrazzanu, when it was convenient, to tell the princess that he should not be home to dinner that day. Firrazzanu did not find it convenient to deliver the message for a week, when he said that the prince would not be home to dine that day. On the first occasion, of course, the princess waited for her husband in great anxiety until midnight; on the second she went out to pay visits, and when the prince returned, he found his wife out, and no dinner prepared. Firrazzanu, when scolded, excused himself by saying that the prince told him to deliver the message when convenient.
This recalls the story in Straparola (XIII. 6) where a master orders his lazy servant to go to market and buy some meat, and says to him, sarcastically: "Go and stay a year!" which command the servant obeys to the letter.
The viceroy at last, angry at one of Firrazzanu's jokes, banished him to the town of Murriali. When Firrazzanu grew tired of the place, he had a cart filled with the earth of the town, and rode into Palermo on it. The viceroy had him arrested as soon as he saw him, but Firrazzanu protested that he had not broken the viceroy's command, for he was still on the earth of Murriali.
The same story is told of Gonnella, the Italian counterpart of Firrazzanu, by Sacchetti (Nov. 27), and Bandello (IV. 18).
The prince desired once to give Firrazzanu a lesson that
