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A young curate with more pertness than wit of learning being asked in company how he came to take it into his head to enter into the ministry of the church? Because, said he, the Lord hath need of me. That may be, replied George, who was present, for I have often read that the Lord had once need of an ass.
Two drunken fellows fell a-beating one another on the streets of London, which caused a great croud of people throng together to see what it was; a taylor being at work in a garret, about three or four storeys high, and hearing a noise in the street, looked over
the window, but could not well see them: so he began to stretch himself, making a long neck, until he fell down out of the window, and alighted upon an old man who was walking on the street'; the poor taylor was more afraid than hurt, but the man he fell on died directly. His son caused the tailor to be apprehended, and tried for the murder of his father. The jury could not bring it in, as wilful murder, neither could they altogether free the tailor: so the jury gave it over to the judges, and the judges to the king. The king asked George's advice in the matter. Why, says George, I will give you my opinion in a minute: you must cause the tailor to stand on the street in the same place where the old gentleman was when he was killed by the tailor, and then let the old gentleman's son the tailor's adversary, go up to the window from whence the tailor fell, and jump down and so kill the tailor as he did his father; for I can make no more of it: you see it was a great mercy for the tailor that he had the old gentleman beneath him, else he had been killed on the spot, and that it was the old gentleman's lot or misfortune to die there. The tailor s adversary
