Not the Pope himself shall have these from me, though he sent the whole college of cardinals to ask it.

How came it?
Why, you had scarce gone ere this loathly John came running back again, and, when I oped mouth to reproach him, he asked me whether it was indeed likely that a man of prayer would leave his own godly raiment in order to take a layman's jerkin.

He had, he said, but gone for a while that I might be the freer for my devotions.

On this I plucked off the gown, and he with much show of haste did begin to undo his points; but when I threw his frock down he clipped it up and ran off all untrussed, leaving me in this sorry plight.

He laughed so the while, like a great croaking frog, that I might have caught him had my breath not been as short as his legs were long." The young man listened to this tale of wrong with all the seriousness that he could maintain; but at the sight of the pursy red-faced man and the dignity with which he bore him, the laughter came so thick upon him that he had to lean up against a tree-trunk.