cles. Then
Gargantua desired that he might be presently sent for, to the end that with
him they might consult of what was to be done. Whereupon, by a joint
consent, his steward went for him, and brought him along merrily, with his
staff of the cross, upon Grangousier's mule. When he was come, a thousand
huggings, a thousand embracements, a thousand good days were given. Ha,
Friar John, my friend Friar John, my brave cousin Friar John from the
devil! Let me clip thee, my heart, about the neck; to me an armful. I
must grip thee, my ballock, till thy back crack with it. Come, my cod, let
me coll thee till I kill thee. And Friar John, the gladdest man in the
world, never was man made welcomer, never was any more courteously and
graciously received than Friar John. Come, come, said Gargantua, a stool
here close by me at this end. I am content, said the monk, seeing you will
have it so. Some water, page; fill, my boy, fill; it is to refresh my
liver. Give me some, child, to gargle my throat withal. Deposita cappa,
said Gymnast, let us pull off this frock. Ho, by G--, gentlemen, said the
monk, there is a chapter in Statutis Ordinis which opposeth my laying of it
down. Pish! said Gymnast, a fig for your chapter! This frock breaks both
your shoulders, put it off. My friend, said the monk, let me alone with
it; for, by G--, I'll drink the better that it is on. It makes all my body
jocund. If I should lay it aside, the waggish pages would cut to
themselves garters out of it, as I was once served at Coulaines. And,
which is worse, I shall lose my appetite. But if in this habit I sit down
at table, I will drink, by G--, both to thee and to thy horse, and so
courage, frolic, God save the company! I have already supped, yet will I
eat never a whit the less for that; for I have a paved stomach, as hollow
as a butt of malvoisie or St. Benedictus' boot (butt), and always open like
a lawyer's pouch. Of all fishes but the tench take the wing of a partridge
or the thigh of a nun. Doth not he die like a good fellow that dies with a
stiff catso? Our prior loves exceedingly the white of a capon. In that,
said Gymnast, he doth not resemble the foxes; for of the capons, hens, and
pullets which they carry away they never eat the white. Why? said the
monk. Because, said Gymnast, they have no cooks to dress them; and, if
they be not competently made ready, they remain red and not white; the
redness of meats being a token th