Finally we came into a hall downstairs, where we saw an overgrown cursed mangy cur with a pair of heads, a wolf’s belly, and claws like the devil of hell.  The son of a bitch was fed with costs, for he lived on a multiplicity of fine amonds and amerciaments by order of their worships, to each of whom the monster was worth more than the best farm in the land.  In their tongue of ignorance they called him Twofold.  His dam lay by him, and her hair and shape was like her whelp’s, only she had four heads, two male and two female, and her name was Fourfold.  She was certainly the most cursed and dangerous creature of the place, except her grandam, which we saw, and had been kept locked up in a dungeon time out of mind, and her name was Refusing-of-fees.

Friar John, who had always twenty yards of gut ready empty to swallow a gallimaufry of lawyers, began to be somewhat out of humour, and desired Pantagruel to remember he had not dined, and bring Double-fee along with him.  So away we went, and as we marched out at the back-gate whom should we meet but an old piece of mortality in chains.  He was half ignorant and half learned, like an hermaphrodite of Satan.  The fellow was all caparisoned with spectacles as a tortoise is with shells, and lived on nothing but a sort of food which, in their gibberish, was called appeals.  Pantagruel asked Double-fee of what breed was that prothonotary, and what name they gave him.  Double-fee told us that time out of mind he had been kept there in chains, to the great grief of their worships, who starved him, and his name was Review.  By the pope’s sanctified two-pounders, cried Friar John, I do not much wonder at the meagre cheer which this old chuff finds among their worships.  Do but look a little on the weather-beaten scratch-toby, friend Panurge; by the sacred tip of my cowl, I’ll lay five pounds to a hazel-nut the foul thief has the very looks of Gripe-me-now.  These same fellows here, ignorant as they be, are as sharp and knowing as other folk.  But were it my case, I would send him packing with a squib in his breech like a rogue as he is.  By my oriental barnacles, quoth Panurge, honest friar, thou art in the right; for if we but examine that treacherous Review’s ill-favoured phiz, we find that the filthy snudge is yet more mischievous and ignorant than these ignorant wretches here, since they (honest dunces) grapple and glean with as little harm and pother as they can, without any long fiddle-cum-farts or tantalizing in the case; nor do they dally and demur in your suit, but in two or three words, whip-stitch, in a trice, they finish the vintage of the close, bating you all these damned tedious interlocutories, examinations, and appointments which fret to the heart’s blood your furred law-cats.

Chapter 5.XVII.

How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to have been killed.