that thousands should
be defamed for the hypocrisy of a few."

"Now are you reasonable. You have pondered what I said?"

"Nay, it is their own doing."

Gerard crowed a little, we all like to be proved in the right; and
was all attention when Denys offered to relate how his conversion was
effected.

"Well then, at dinner the first day a young monk beside me did open his
jaws and laughed right out and most musically. 'Good,' said I, 'at last
I have fallen on a man and not a shorn ape.' So, to sound him further,
I slapped his broad back and administered my consigne. 'Heaven forbid!'
says he. I stared. For the dog looked as sad as Solomon; a better mime
saw you never, even at a Mystery. 'I see war is no sharpener of the
wits,' said he. 'What are the clergy for but to fight the foul fiend?
and what else are the monks for?

"The fiend being dead,
The friars are sped."

You may plough up the convents, and we poor monks shall have nought to
do--but turn soldiers, and so bring him to life again.' Then there was a
great laugh at my expense. 'Well, you are the monk for me,' said I. 'And
you are the crossbowman for me,' quo' he. 'And I'll be bound you could
tell us tales of the war should make our hair stand on end.' 'Excusez!
the barber has put that out of the question,' quoth I, and then I had
the laugh."

"What wretched ribaldry!" observed Gerard pensively.

The candid Denys at once admitted he had seen merrier jests hatched with
less cackle. "'Twas a great matter to have got rid of hypocrisy. 'So,'
said I, 'I can give you the chaire de poule, if that may content ye.'
'That we will see,' was the cry, and a signal went round."

Denys then related, bursting with glee, how at bedtime he had been taken
to a cell instead of the great dortour, and strictly forbidden to sleep;
and to aid his vigil, a book had been lent him of pictures representing
a hundred merry adventures of monks in pursuit of the female laity;
and how in due course he had been taken out barefooted and down to the
parlour, where was a supper fit for the duke, and at it twelve jolly
friars, the roaringest boys he had ever met in peace or war. How the
story, the toast, the jest, the wine-cup had gone round, and some
had played cards with a gorgeous pack, where Saint Theresa, and Saint
Catherine, etc., bedizened with gold, stood for the four queens; and
black, white, grey, and crutched friars for the four knaves; and had
staked their very rosaries