e-fee told us they had not often such huge bunches; but, let the worst
come to the worst, they were sure never to be without others in their
press. But hark you me, master of mine, asked Panurge, have they not some
of different growth? Ay, marry have they, quoth Double-fee. Do you see
here this little bunch, to which they are going to give t'other wrench? It
is of tithe-growth, you must know; they crushed, wrung, squeezed and
strained out the very heart's blood of it but the other day; but it did not
bleed freely; the oil came hard, and smelt of the priest's chest; so that
they found there was not much good to be got out of it. Why then, said
Pantagruel, do they put it again into the press? Only, answered
Double-fee, for fear there should still lurk some juice among the husks and
hullings in the mother of the grape. The devil be damned! cried Friar
John; do you call these same folks illiterate lobcocks and duncical
doddipolls? May I be broiled like a red herring if I do not think they are
wise enough to skin a flint and draw oil out of a brick wall. So they are,
said Double-fee; for they sometimes put castles, parks, and forests into
the press, and out of them all extract aurum potabile. You mean portabile,
I suppose, cried Epistemon, such as may be borne. I mean as I said,
replied Double-fee, potabile, such as may be drunk; for it makes them drink
many a good bottle more than otherwise they should.

But I cannot better satisfy you as to the growth of the vine-tree sirup
that is here squeezed out of grapes, than in desiring you to look yonder in
that back-yard, where you will see above a thousand different growths that
lie waiting to be squeezed every moment. Here are some of the public and
some of the private growth; some of the builders' fortifications, loans,
gifts, and gratuities, escheats, forfeitures, fines, and recoveries, penal
statutes, crown lands, and demesne, privy purse, post-offices, offerings,
lordships of manors, and a world of other growths, for which we want names.
Pray, quoth Epistemon, tell me of what growth is that great one, with all
those little grapelings about it. Oh, oh! returned Double-fee, that plump
one is of the treasury, the very best growth in the whole country.
Whenever anyone of that growth is squeezed, there is not one of their
worships but gets juice enough of it to soak his nose six months together.
When their worships were up, Pantagruel desired Double-fee to take us into