ted not till he had discovered his friend--the clerk who served the
Cardinal.

After mutual salutations, the clerk asked after his wife, and the other,
expecting to give him much pleasure and further his own interests in
the request he was about to make, replied that she was dead--in which
he lied, for I know that at this present moment (**) she can still worry
her husband.

(*) During eight months of the year, the Pope had the right
of bestowing all livings which became vacant.

(**) That is when the story was written.

"Do you say that my wife is dead?" cried the clerk. "May God pardon her
all her sins."

"Yes, truly," replied the other; "the plague carried her off last year,
along with many others."

He told this lie, which cost him dear, because he knew that the clerk
had only left home on account of his wife, who was of a quarrelsome
disposition, and he thought the most pleasant news he could bring was
to announce her death, and truly so it would have been, but the news was
false.

"And what brings you to this country?" asked the clerk after many and
various questions.

"I will tell you, my friend and companion. The cure of our town is dead;
so I came to you to ask if by any means I could obtain the benefice. I
would beg of you to help me in this matter. I know that it is in your
power to procure me the living, with the help of monseigneur, your
master."

The clerk, thinking that his wife was dead, and the cure of his native
town vacant, thought to himself that he would snap up this living, and
others too if he could get them. But, all the same, he said nothing to
his friend, except that it would not be his fault if the other were not
cure of their town,--for which he was much thanked.

It happened quite otherwise, for, on the morrow, our Holy Father, at the
request of the Cardinal, the master of our clerk, gave the latter the
living.

Thereupon this clerk, when he heard the news, came to his companion, and
said to him,

"Ah, friend, by my oath, your hopes are dissipated, at which I am much
vexed."

"How so?" asked the other.

"The cure of our town is given," he said, "but I know not to whom.
Monseigneur, my master, tried to help you, but it was not in his power
to accomplish it."

At which the other was vexed, after he had come so far and expended so
much. So he sorrowfully took leave of his friend, and returned to his
own country, without boasting about the lie he had told.