o no purpose. The shoemaker did not
wish to be the first one to speak, and only replied, "Leulero! leulero!"
and his wife "Picici! picici! picicio!" Then the soldier got mad in good
earnest, seized the shoemaker's head, and was going to cut it off. When
his wile saw that, she cried out, "Ah, don't, for mercy's sake!" "Good!"
exclaimed her husband, "good! Now you go and carry the pan back to my
godmother, and I will go and cut the horse's girth."

In a Sicilian version the man and wife fry some fish, and then set about
their respective work--shoemaking and spinning--and the one who finishes
first the piece of work begun is to eat the fish. While they are singing
and whistling at their work, a friend comes along, who knocks at the
door, but receives no answer. Then he enters and speaks to them, but
still no reply. Finally, in anger, he sits down at the table, and eats
up all the fish himself.[11]

Thus, it will be observed, the droll incident which forms the subject of
the old Scotch song of "The Barring of the Door" is of world-wide
celebrity.

* * * * *

Gothamite stories appear to have been familiar throughout Europe during
the later Middle Ages, if we may judge from a chapter of the _Gesta
Romanorum_ in which the monkish compiler has curiously "moralised"
the actions of three noodles:

We read in the "Lives of the Fathers" that an angel showed to a certain
holy man three men labouring under a triple fatuity. The first made a
faggot of wood, and because it was too heavy for him to carry, he added
to it more wood, hoping by such means to make it light. The second drew
water with great labour from a very deep well with a sieve, which he
incessantly filled. The third carried a beam in his chariot, and,
wishing to enter his house, whereof the gate was so narrow and low that
it would not admit him, he violently whipped his horse until they both
fell together into a deep well. Having shown this to the holy man, the
angel said, "What think you of these three men?" "That they are fools,"
answered he. "Understand, however," returned the angel, "that they
represent the sinners of this world. The first describes that kind of
men who from day to day do add new sins to the old, because they cannot
bear the weight of those which they already have. The second man
represents those who do good, but do it sinfully, and therefore it is of
no benefit. And the third person is he who would enter the kin