Page 152 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Chapter 4.

One was stupid

Two weeks before the grotesque book appeared, that is to say

Sunday August 1, 1581

As for the stupid....
Tozzo Scatenarsi had been drinking. One of his favorite pastimes, of course. Drinking to
excess with his drinking companions at the Wheat and Chaff tavern up on Via Intrappolati. An
athletic version of hucklebones had broken out. This was the third time this week for
hucklebonic gambling. Much money to be won, much more money to be lost. Tozzo was, at
this moment, winning, which meant he was drinking in celebration. Had he been losing instead
of winning, he would also have been drinking, in sorrow.
“What hundreds say, what thousands think:
Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink drink!”
Tozzo shouted to the tavern girl, “Another! Carola! Carola! Another tankard!” Carola
fetched him another tankard. “Come, my boys, come my bones!” shouted Tozzo, rattling,
rattling, rattling the hucklebones cup. “I’m in need of a sixteen. Three threes or more!”
“Eh...no...” shouted Carola in her husky-feminine voice from across the room, “Four
fours or more, to get to sixteen.”
“No,” said Tozzo, “Four fours is twenty. Stand back, I’m going to roll!”
Carola said, “Three, six, nine, twelve. Three threes is nine. It’s four and a four and a
four and a four you want, Tozzo-ozzo. Or six and six and three and one.” Carola came back to
Tozzo’s side, slamming down his tankard.
Oh, a pretty thing was Carola, thought Tozzo. Apricotted cheeks and piercing brown
eyes, and buxom, buxom, buxom! She wore her hair braids, like the Swiss cowmaidens, brown,
the color of dirt. And a honk of a laugh!

“I have a denaro to spare,” said Carola, “I’ll wager it against you and your four-fours-is-
sixteen.” Truth be told, she thought, I have several denari to spare, but I know better than to
wager too much on one of my customers over another of them. But, oh, how she wanted to
wager everything she had on the hucklebones. She had watched enough of the games to have
stored up an approximation of the mathematical likelihood of a sixteen or higher (rolls which
were higher than fifteen came up about three times out of every five rolls of the bones) and she
knew, she knew she could raise a pretty fortune on the bones, give enough evenings of play and
cash reserves to let the odds pay in her favor. But she had also calculated the emotional loss she

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