f Spain and Portugal came to me like cats suing for morsels, and I gave
them the West and the East?"

"It is true," Alexander the Eighth allowed, "that the lustre of the Church
hath of late been obfuscated by the prevalence of heresy."

"It isn't the heretics," Borgia insisted. "It is the degeneracy of the
Popes. A shabby lot! You, Alexander, are about the best of them; but the
least Cardinal about my Court would have thought himself bigger than you."

Alexander's spirit rose. "I would suggest," he said, "that this haughty
style is little in keeping with the sordid garb wherein your Holiness,
consistent after death as in your life, masquerades to the scandal and
distress of the faithful."

"How can I other? Has your Holiness forgotten your Rabelais?"

"The works of that eminent Doctor and Divine," answered Alexander the
Eighth, "are seldom long absent from my hands, yet I fail to remember in
what manner they elucidate the present topic."

"Let me refresh your memory," rejoined Borgia, and, producing a volume of
the Sage of Meudon, he turned to the chapter descriptive of the employments
of various eminent inhabitants of the nether world, and pointed to the
sentence:

"LE PAPE ALEXANDRE ESTOYT PRENEUR DE RATZ." [*]

[Footnote: _Pantagruel_, Book XI. ch. 30.]

"Is this indeed sooth?" demanded his successor.

"How else should Francois Rabelais have affirmed it?" responded Borgia.
"When I arrived in the subterranean kingdom, I found it in the same
condition as your Holiness's dominions at the present moment, eaten up by
rats. The attention which, during my earthly pilgrimage, I had devoted to
the science of toxicology indicated me as a person qualified to abate the
nuisance, which commission I executed with such success, that I received
the appointment of Ratcatcher to his Infernal Majesty, and so discharged
its duties as to merit a continuance of the good opinion which had always
been entertained of me in that exalted quarter. After a while, however,
interest began to be made for me in even more elevated spheres. I had not
been able to cram Heaven with Spaniards, as I had crammed the Sacred
College--on the contrary. Truth to speak, my nation has not largely
contributed to the population of the regions above. But some of us are
people of consequence. My great-grandson, the General of the Jesuits, who,
as such, had the ear of St. Ignatius Loyola, represented that had I adhered
strictly to my vows, he could never hav