d with a smile: "He is one of the paladins
of my Round Table."

Brother Egidio had a taste for great adventures, and is a living example
of a Franciscan of the earliest days; he survived his master twenty-five
years, and never ceased to obey the letter and spirit of the Rule with
freedom and simplicity.

We find him one day setting out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Arrived at Brindisi, he borrowed a water-jug that he might carry water
while he was awaiting the departure of the ship, and passed a part of
every day in crying through the streets of the city: "_Alla fresca! Alla
fresca!_" like other water-carriers. But he would change his trade
according to the country and the circumstances; on his way back, at
Ancona, he procured willow for making baskets, which he afterward sold,
not for money but for his food. It even happened to him to be employed
in burying the dead.

Sent to Rome, every morning after finishing his religious duties, he
would take a walk of several leagues, to a certain forest, whence he
brought a load of wood. Coming back one day he met a lady who wanted to
buy it; they agreed on a price, and Egidio carried it to her house. But
when he arrived at the house she perceived him to be a friar, and would
have given him more than the price agreed upon. "My good lady," he
replied, "I will not permit myself to be overcome by avarice," and he
departed without accepting anything at all.

In the olive season he helped in the gathering; in grape season he
offered himself as vintager. One day on the Piazza di Roma, where men
are hired for day's work, he saw a _padrone_ who could not find a man to
thrash his walnut tree; it was so high that no one dared risk himself
in it. "If you will give me part of the nuts," said Egidio, "I will do
it willingly." The bargain struck and the tree thrashed, there proved to
be so many nuts that he did not know where to put his share. Gathering
up his tunic he made a bag of it and full of joy returned to Rome, where
he distributed them among all the poor whom he met.

Is not this a charming incident? Does it not by itself alone reveal the
freshness, the youth, the kindness of heart of the first Franciscans?
There is no end to the stories of the ingenuousness of Brother Egidio.
All kinds of work seemed good to him provided he had time enough in the
morning for his religious duties. Now he is in the service of the
Cellarer of the Four Crowns at Rome, sifting flour and carrying