about an hour before
noon
Meanwhile the story of Contarini 's mishap had spread in Venice like wildfire , and before noon there was hardly one of all his many relations and friends who had not heard it . The tale ran through the town , told by high and low , by Jacopo 's own trusted servant , and the old woman who had waited on Arisa , and it had reached the market-place at an early hour , so that the ballad-makers were busy with it . For many had known of the existence of the beautiful Georgian slave and the subject was a good one for a song -- how she had caressed him to sleep and fostered his foolish security while he loved her blindly , and how she and her mysterious lover had bound him and shaved his head and face and made him a laughing-stock , so that he must hide himself from the world for months , and moreover how they had carried away by night all the precious gifts he had heaped upon the woman since he had bought her in the slave-market . Last of all , his father heard it when he came home about an hour before noon from the sitting of the Council of Ten , of which he was a member for that year . He found Zuan Venier waiting in the hall of his house , and the two remained closeted together for some time . For the young man had promised Jacopo to tell old Contarini , though it was an ungrateful errand , and one which , the latter might remember against him . But it was a kind action , and Venier performed it as well as he could , telling the story truthfully , but leaving out all such useless details as might increase the father 's anger .