adventurer, whom Pantagruel, pious prince as he was, coming upon him by
chance, took and kept under his patronage. Panurge was an arch-imp of
mischief,--mischief indulged in the form of obscene and malicious
practical jokes. Rabelais describes his accomplishments in a long strain
of discourse, from which we purge our selection to follow,--thereby
transforming Panurge into a comparatively proper and virtuous person:--

He had threescore and three tricks to come by it [money] at his
need, of which the most honorable and most ordinary was in manner
of thieving, secret purloining, and filching, for he was a wicked,
lewd rogue, a cozener, drinker, roysterer, rover, and a very
dissolute and debauched fellow, if there were any in Paris;
otherwise, and in all matters else, the best and most virtuous man
in the world; and he was still contriving some plot, and devising
mischief against the serjeants and the watch.

At one time he assembled three or four especial good hacksters and
roaring boys; made them in the evening drink like Templars,
afterwards led them till they came under St. Genevieve, or about
the college of Navarre, and, at the hour that the watch was coming
up that way,--which he knew by putting his sword upon the pavement,
and his ear by it, and, when he heard his sword shake, it was an
infallible sign that the watch was near at that instant,--then he
and his companions took a tumbrel or garbage-cart, and gave it the
brangle, hurling it with all their force down the hill, and then
ran away upon the other side; for in less than two days he knew all
the streets, lanes, and turnings in Paris, as well as his _Deus
det._

At another time he laid, in some fair place where the said watch
was to pass, a train of gunpowder, and, at the very instant that
they went along, set fire to it, and then made himself sport to see
what good grace they had in running away, thinking that St.
Anthony's fire had caught them by the legs.... In one of his
pockets he had a great many little horns full of fleas and lice,
which he borrowed from the beggars of St. Innocent, and cast them,
with small canes or quills to write with, into the necks of the
daintiest gentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church;
for he never seated himself above in the choir, but always in the
body of