ards married Margaret. Then
there was the Fool. It seems to us now such an odd idea to have a man
paid to make jokes, but in those days it was the fashion. Some man who
had a gift for saying funny things used to live in the household of a
great nobleman and be as amusing as he could, and for this he received
payment. More's fool was often rather impertinent, and at one time when
there was a big dinner, and one of the guests happened to have a
particularly large nose, the fool said out loud: 'What a terrible nose
that gentleman has got!' So all the family pretended not to hear, and
were rather uncomfortable, and when the fool saw that, he said: 'How I
lied when I said that gentleman's nose was monstrous; now I come to look
at it I really think it's rather a small nose!' Well, of course, no one
could help laughing after that, and they all went off into peals of
merriment, even the poor gentleman himself.

In the early mornings when the air was fresh and sweet, and in summer
the garden full of roses, More would wander round with his dear Meg, and
perhaps the other children would come, too, to look at all the pets.
They kept a number of strange animals; there were rabbits, a monkey, a
fox, a ferret, a weasel, and many others, and the children themselves
kept the cages clean, and were taught to be kind to them. Lady More did
not care for these things, she liked better to dress herself very
smartly and lace herself very tight; and when her husband laughed at
her, she said, 'Tilly, vally, Sir Thomas! tilly, vally!' just as we
should say, 'Tut, tut!'

She once found a stray dog, however, to which she took a great fancy,
and she petted it and fed it; but after a few days a beggar-girl walking
in the street, who met her with the dog, suddenly cried out that it was
hers, and the dog knew her, and rushed and danced round her and licked
her hands. Lady More was very angry, and said it was her dog, and
ordered her footman to pick it up and carry it back home. The
beggar-girl followed them all the way, crying; but when she arrived at
the house the door was shut, and she was left outside. When Sir Thomas
came home that evening in his barge, as he stepped out on the land he
saw a poor little dirty girl with her face all stained with tears. He
was always kind, so he stopped and asked her what was the matter, and
she told him all her story about having lost her dog. Now, Sir Thomas
was at that time the head of all the judges in England,