ts and cause your
benevolence to lessen, how would it fare with you, then? Fri. Ill.

Pan. What would the wenches do? Fri. Rail.

Pan. What if you skipped, and let 'em fast a whole day? Fri. Worse.

Pan. What do you give 'em then? Fri. Thwacks.

Pan. What do they say to this? Fri. Bawl.

Pan. And what else? Fri. Curse.

Pan. How do you correct 'em? Fri. Hard.

Pan. What do you get out of 'em then? Fri. Blood.

Pan. How's their complexion then? Fri. Odd.

Pan. What do they mend it with? Fri. Paint.

Pan. Then what do they do? Fri. Fawn.

Pan. By the oath you have taken, tell me truly what time of the year do
you do it least in? Fri. Now (August.).

Pan. What season do you do it best in? Fri. March.

Pan. How is your performance the rest of the year? Fri. Brisk.

Then quoth Panurge, sneering, Of all, and of all, commend me to Ball; this
is the friar of the world for my money. You've heard how short, concise,
and compendious he is in his answers. Nothing is to be got out of him but
monosyllables. By jingo, I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.

Damn him, cried Friar John, that's as true as I am his uncle. The dog
yelps at another gate's rate when he is among his bitches; there he is
polysyllable enough, my life for yours. You talk of making three bites of
a cherry! God send fools more wit and us more money! May I be doomed to
fast a whole day if I don't verily believe he would not make above two
bites of a shoulder of mutton and one swoop of a whole pottle of wine.
Zoons, do but see how down o' the mouth the cur looks! He's nothing but
skin and bones; he has pissed his tallow.

Truly, truly, quoth Epistemon, this rascally monastical vermin all over the
world mind nothing but their gut, and are as ravenous as any kites, and
then, forsooth, they tell us they've nothing but food and raiment in this
world. 'Sdeath, what more have kings and princes?

Chapter 5.XXIX.

How Epistemon disliked the institution of Lent.

Pray did you observe, continued Epistemon, how this damned ill-favoured
Semiquaver mentioned March as the best month for caterwauling? True, said
Pantagruel; yet Lent and March always go together, and the first was
instituted to macerate and bring down our pampered flesh, to weaken and
subdue its lusts, to curb and assuage the venereal rage.

By this, said Epistemon, you may guess what kind of a pope it was who first
enjoined it