OF THE PERVERSITY, &c.
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TALE LXXXIV.
OF THE PERVERSITY OF THE WORLD.
We read in a certain book of a conversation between Jesus Christ and St. Peter. "I saw," said the latter, "five men whom I thought madmen. The first eat the sand of the sea so greedily, that it slipt through his jaws on either side of the mouth. Another I observed standing upon a pit full of sulphur and pitch, of which the smell was intolerable; yet he strove earnestly to inhale it. The third lay upon a burning furnace, whose heat was not enough: he endeavoured to catch the sparks emitted from the furnace that he might eat them. A fourth sat upon the pinnacle of the temple in order to catch the wind. For this purpose he held his mouth open. The fifth, devoured
