Full of joy, his friend was looking on at this act, which had drawn together a crowd, when a priest named Sylvester, who had formerly sold him some stones for the repairs of St.Damian, seeing so much money given away to everyone who applied for it, drew near and said: "Brother, you did not pay me very well for the stones which you bought of me." Francis had too thoroughly killed every germ of avarice in himself not to be moved to indignation by hearing a priest speak thus.

"Here," he said, holding out to him a double handful of coins which he took from Bernardo's robe, "here; are you sufficiently paid now ?" "Quite so," replied Sylvester, somewhat abashed by the murmurs of the bystanders.[6] This picture, in which the characters stand out so strongly, must have taken strong hold upon the memory of the bystanders: the Italians only thoroughly understand things which they make a picture of.

It taught them, better than all Francis's preachings, what manner of men these new friars would be.
The distribution finished, they went at once to Portiuncula, where Bernardo and Pietro built for themselves cabins of boughs, and made themselves tunics like that of Francis.

They did not differ much from the garment worn by the peasants, and were of that brown, with its infinite variety of shades, which the Italians call beast color.

One finds similar garments to-day among the shepherds of the most remote parts of the Apennines.
A week later, Thursday, April 23, 1209,[7] a new disciple of the name of Egidio presented himself before Francis.