THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
doing nothing; since even of this a man gets tired in time. And then he looks out for a nice quiet corner in the churchyard and curls himself round and goes to sleep, and doesn't answer when they come to call him in the morning. Then it's no good to hammer at the door and bellow "Hi! get up, it's half-past twelve. Are you going to sleep all day?" since the old Silurian doesn't hear anything and lies very still. But of this story there are two morals: and the first is Don't believe everything the historians tell you; and the second Keep sober till the joke be over: and I think these are good morals, especially the last.
Thus Nick Leonard brought his tale of Caerleon to a close; and we all praised him for it, though we had found it in parts a little tedious; but yet on the whole it is a pleasant, moral, story. The Rubrican however said: "I find fault with this tale and also the tale of Sir Jenkin, and my fault is that in the both of them the wrong circumstance hath been chosen, and the less made the greater. For consider, Phil, what a sweet mournful tale of love you could have devised of the Noble Bastard and the Lady Isabella; and you Nick I believe could have told us some adventure of the waggish gentleman far more pleasant than the folly of the old Mole, who was, I am convinced, an ass." "It always seems thus," answered Phil Ambrose, "to those who hear the stories; but if you will take thought you will see plainly that piteous love par amours is a tale that has been told many times; aye, verily since the world
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