“I would that you could ask too much,” said brother Lorenzo, waddling after his master, who was descending the stairs leading to the court-yard.  “I really wish, your holiness, that it were asking too much, for then your dinner would be at least a little more desirable and heavier to transport!  Was such a thing ever heard of? the father of Christianity keeps a table like that of the poorest begging monk, and is satisfied with milk, fruit, bread, and vegetables, while the fattest of capons and ducks are crammed in vain for him, and his cellar is replete with the most generous wines.”

“Well, well, scold not,” said Ganganelli, smiling; “have we not for years felt ourselves well in the Franciscan cloister, it never once occurring to us to wish ourselves better off!  Why should I now quit the habits of years and accustom myself to other usages?  When I was yet a Franciscan monk, I always had, thanks to our simple manner of living, a very healthy stomach, and would you have me spoil it now, merely because I have become pope?  It has always remained the same human body, Lorenzo, and all the rest is only falsehood and fraud!  How few years is it since you and I were in the cloister, and you served the poor Franciscan monk as a lay brother!  You then called me brother Clement, and they all did the same, and now you no longer call me brother, but holy father!  How can your brother of yesterday be your father of to-day?  We are here alone, Lorenzo; nobody sees or hears us.  We would for once cease to be holy father, and for a quarter of an hour become again brother Clement.”

“Ahem! it was not so bad there,” simpered Lorenzo.  “It was yet very pleasant in our dear cloister, and I often think, brother, that you were far happier then than now, when every one falls upon his knees to kiss your slipper.  It must be very dull to be always holy, always so great and sublime, and always revered and adored!”

“Therefore let us go to our ducks and hens,” said the pope.  “The people have made a bugbear of me, before which they fall upon the earth.  But the good animals, who understand nothing of these things, they cackle and grunt, and gabble at me, as if I were nothing but a common goose-herd and by no means the sainted father of Christendom!  Come, come to my dear brutes, who are so frank and sincere that they cackle and gabble directly in my face as soon as their beaks and snouts are grown.  They are not so humble and devoted, so adoring and cringing, as these men who prostrate themselves before me with humble and hypocritical devotion, but who secretly curse me and wish my death, that there may be a change in the papacy!  Come, come, to our honest geese!”