ability in the performance of the promise which he had made unto him concerning a new frock.  How! quoth Friar Crankcod, thou knowest well enough that by the express rules, canons, and injunctions of our order we are forbidden to carry on us any kind of money.  Thou art truly unhappy, for having made me in this point to commit a heinous trespass.  Why didst thou not leave thy purse with the miller?  Without fail thou shalt presently receive thy reward for it; and if ever hereafter I may but lay hold upon thee within the limits of our chancel at Mirebeau, thou shalt have the Miserere even to the Vitulos.  With this, suddenly discharging himself of his burden, he throws me down your Dodin headlong.  Take example by this Dodin, my dear friend Friar John, to the end that the devils may the better carry thee away at thine own ease.  Give me thy purse.  Carry no manner of cross upon thee.  Therein lieth an evident and manifestly apparent danger.  For if you have any silver coined with a cross upon it, they will cast thee down headlong upon some rocks, as the eagles use to do with the tortoises for the breaking of their shells, as the bald pate of the poet Aeschylus can sufficiently bear witness.  Such a fall would hurt thee very sore, my sweet bully, and I would be sorry for it.  Or otherwise they will let thee fall and tumble down into the high swollen waves of some capacious sea, I know not where; but, I warrant thee, far enough hence, as Icarus fell, which from thy name would afterwards get the denomination of the Funnelian Sea.

Secondly, be out of debt.  For the devils carry a great liking to those that are out of debt.  I have sore felt the experience thereof in mine own particular; for now the lecherous varlets are always wooing me, courting me, and making much of me, which they never did when I was all to pieces.  The soul of one in debt is insipid, dry, and heretical altogether.

Thirdly, with the cowl and Domino de Grobis, return to Raminagrobis; and in case, being thus qualified, thirty thousand boatsful of devils forthwith come not to carry thee quite away, I shall be content to be at the charge of paying for the pint and faggot.  Now, if for the more security thou wouldst some associate to bear thee company, let not me be the comrade thou searchest for; think not to get a fellow-traveller of me,—­nay, do not.  I advise thee for the best.  Get you hence; I will not go thither.  The devil take me if I go.  Notwithstanding all the fright that you are in, quoth Friar John, I would not care so much as might possibly be expected I should, if I once had but my sword in my hand.  Thou hast verily hit the nail on the head, quoth Panurge, and speakest like a learned doctor, subtle and well-skilled in the art of devilry.  At the time when I was a student in the University of Toulouse (Tolette), that same reverend father in the devil, Picatrix, rector of the diabological faculty, was wont to tell us that the devils did naturally fear the