, drink, and be silent. You are the first person
that has ever spoken of peasants and such rabble at my table. Verily, if
your dress did not declare you to be a gentleman, I should be inclined to
think that you were sprung from beggars, since you speak so warmly in
their favour. Learn that the peasant who does not pay his rent does just
as well in cutting his throat, as certain people would do in holding
their tongues instead of spoiling my appetite with useless speeches.
Clerk-of-the-kitchen, that is a noble calf's-head.

_Clerk-of-the-kitchen_. It is the head of Hans Ruprecht's calf.

_Bishop_. So, so! Send it me here, and reach me the pepper. I will cut
myself a slice. And you, Mr. What's-your-name, may as well take a piece
with me.

The clerk-of-the-kitchen placed the pepper-castor before the Bishop.
Faustus whispered into the ear of the Devil; and at the moment the Bishop
ran his knife into the calf's-head, the Devil changed it to the head of
Hans Ruprecht, which, wild, horrible, and bloody, now stared the Bishop
in the face. His reverence let fall his knife, and sank back in a
feinting fit; while the whole company sat in lifeless horror and
stupefaction.

_Faustus_. My Lord Bishop, and ye most reverend gentlemen, learn from
this to practise Christian charity as well as to preach it.

He hurried away with the Devil.

The _sang-froid_ of the Bishop and his table-companions, and the brutal
manner in which he spoke of the fate of the unfortunate suicide, sowed
the first seeds of gloomy horror in the breast of Faustus. He revolved
in his mind his former experience, as well as what he had seen since he
had roamed about with the Devil, and perceived, whichever way he turned,
nothing but hard-heartedness, deceit, tyranny, and a willingness to
commit crime for the sake of gold, preferment, or luxury. He wished to
seek for the cause of all this in man himself; but his own unquiet and
doubtful spirit, and his imagination, which always avoided difficulties
within its reach, began already in dark dissatisfaction to make the
Creator of mankind, if not the author, yet, by his sufferance of all
these horrors, at least the accomplice. These impious ideas only
required the aid of a few more horrible scenes to derange his
understanding entirely; and the Devil inwardly rejoiced in being able to
afford a future opportunity for that purpose. Faustus hoped soon to cure
himself of this sadness at the court of the reno