ron, that eateth into their hearts ...
methinketh Master Roper's must be one of 'em. For me, I'm content with
one of wood, like that our deare Lord bore; what was goode enow for him
is goode enow for me, and I've noe temptation to shew it, as it isn't
fine, nor yet to chafe at it for being rougher than my neighbour's, nor
yet to make myself a second because it is not hard enow. Doe you take
me, mistress?"

"I take you for what you are," says Bess, "a poor fool."

"Nay, niece," says Patteson, "my brother your father hath made me
rich."

"I mean," says Bess, "you have more wisdom than witt, and a real fool
has neither, therefore you are only a make-believe fool."

"Well, there are many make-believe sages," says Patteson; "for mine owne
part, I never aim to be thoughte a Hiccius Doccius."

"A hic est doctus, fool, you mean," interrupts Bess.

"Perhaps I do," rejoins Patteson, "since other folks soe oft know better
what we mean than we know ourselves. Alle I woulde say is, I ne'er set
up for a conjuror. One can see as far into a millstone as other people
without being that. For example, when a man is overta'en with qualms of
conscience for having married his brother's widow, when she is noe
longer soe young and fair as she was a score of years ago, we know what
that's a sign of. And when an Ipswich butcher's son takes on him the
state of my lord pope, we know what that's a sign of. Nay, if a young
gentlewoman become dainty at her sizes, and sluttish in her apparel, we
... as I live, here comes John Heron with a fish in's mouth."

Poor Bess involuntarilie turned her head quicklie towards y^e watergate,
on which Patteson, laughing as he lay on his back, points upward with
his peacock's feather, and cries, "Overhead, mistress! see, there he
goes. Sure, you lookt not to see Master Heron making towards us between
y^e posts and flower-pots, eating a dried ling?" laughing as wildly as
though he were verily a natural.

Bess, without a word, shook the crumbs from her lap, and was turning
into the house, when he witholds her a minute in a perfectly altered
fashion, saying, "There be some works, mistress, our confessors tell us
be works of supererogation ... is not that y^e word? I learn a long one
now and then ... such as be setting food before a full man, or singing
to a deaf one, or buying for one's pigs a silver trough, or, for the
matter of that, casting pearls before a dunghill cock, or fishing for a
heron, which is wel