the day thereafter, caused pierce his right ear after the Jewish
fashion, and thereto clasped a little gold ring, of a ferny-like kind of
workmanship, in the beazil or collet whereof was set and enchased a flea;
and, to the end you may be rid of all doubts, you are to know that the flea
was black. O, what a brave thing it is, in every case and circumstance of
a matter, to be thoroughly well informed! The sum of the expense hereof,
being cast up, brought in, and laid down upon his council-board carpet, was
found to amount to no more quarterly than the charge of the nuptials of a
Hircanian tigress; even, as you would say, 600,000 maravedis. At these
vast costs and excessive disbursements, as soon as he perceived himself to
be out of debt, he fretted much; and afterwards, as tyrants and lawyers use
to do, he nourished and fed her with the sweat and blood of his subjects
and clients.

He then took four French ells of a coarse brown russet cloth, and therein
apparelling himself, as with a long, plain-seamed, and single-stitched
gown, left off the wearing of his breeches, and tied a pair of spectacles
to his cap. In this equipage did he present himself before Pantagruel; to
whom this disguise appeared the more strange, that he did not, as before,
see that goodly, fair, and stately codpiece, which was the sole anchor of
hope wherein he was wonted to rely, and last refuge he had midst all the
waves and boisterous billows which a stormy cloud in a cross fortune would
raise up against him. Honest Pantagruel, not understanding the mystery,
asked him, by way of interrogatory, what he did intend to personate in that
new-fangled prosopopoeia. I have, answered Panurge, a flea in mine ear,
and have a mind to marry. In a good time, quoth Pantagruel, you have told
me joyful tidings. Yet would not I hold a red-hot iron in my hand for all
the gladness of them. But it is not the fashion of lovers to be accoutred
in such dangling vestments, so as to have their shirts flagging down over
their knees, without breeches, and with a long robe of a dark brown mingled
hue, which is a colour never used in Talarian garments amongst any persons
of honour, quality, or virtue. If some heretical persons and schismatical
sectaries have at any time formerly been so arrayed and clothed (though
many have imputed such a kind of dress to cosenage, cheat, imposture, and
an affectation of tyranny upon credulous minds of the rude multitude), I
will nevert