At Mans, said Eudemon, Francis Cornu, apothecary, had turned an old set of Extravagantes into waste paper.  May I never stir, if whatever was lapped up in them was not immediately corrupted, rotten, and spoiled; incense, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, saffron, wax, cassia, rhubarb, tamarinds, all drugs and spices, were lost without exception.  Mark, mark, quoth Homenas, an effect of divine justice!  This comes of putting the sacred Scriptures to such profane uses.

At Paris, said Carpalin, Snip Groignet the tailor had turned an old Clementinae into patterns and measures, and all the clothes that were cut on them were utterly spoiled and lost; gowns, hoods, cloaks, cassocks, jerkins, jackets, waistcoats, capes, doublets, petticoats, corps de robes, farthingales, and so forth.  Snip, thinking to cut a hood, would cut you out a codpiece; instead of a cassock he would make you a high-crowned hat; for a waistcoat he’d shape you out a rochet; on the pattern of a doublet he’d make you a thing like a frying-pan.  Then his journeymen having stitched it up did jag it and pink it at the bottom, and so it looked like a pan to fry chestnuts.  Instead of a cape he made a buskin; for a farthingale he shaped a montero cap; and thinking to make a cloak, he’d cut out a pair of your big out-strouting Swiss breeches, with panes like the outside of a tabor.  Insomuch that Snip was condemned to make good the stuffs to all his customers; and to this day poor Cabbage’s hair grows through his hood and his arse through his pocket-holes.  Mark, an effect of heavenly wrath and vengeance! cried Homenas.

At Cahusac, said Gymnast, a match being made by the lords of Estissac and Viscount Lausun to shoot at a mark, Perotou had taken to pieces a set of decretals and set one of the leaves for the white to shoot at.  Now I sell, nay, I give and bequeath for ever and aye, the mould of my doublet to fifteen hundred hampers full of black devils, if ever any archer in the country (though they are singular marksmen in Guienne) could hit the white.  Not the least bit of the holy scribble was contaminated or touched; nay, and Sansornin the elder, who held stakes, swore to us, figues dioures, hard figs (his greatest oath), that he had openly, visibly, and manifestly seen the bolt of Carquelin moving right to the round circle in the middle of the white; and that just on the point, when it was going to hit and enter, it had gone aside above seven foot and four inches wide of it towards the bakehouse.

Miracle! cried Homenas, miracle! miracle!  Clerica, come wench, light, light here.  Here’s to you all, gentlemen; I vow you seem to me very sound Christians.  While he said this, the maidens began to snicker at his elbow, grinning, giggling, and twittering among themselves.  Friar John began to paw, neigh, and whinny at the snout’s end, as one ready to leap, or at least to play the ass, and get up and ride tantivy to the devil like a beggar on horseback.