"Since, before I journeyed to the Court, you said to me that I am to write often to you, and that sometimes I am to send you any theological questions, which you will solve for me better than the courtiers of Rome, therefore now I ask your mastership what you hold as to the case when any one on a Friday, or any other fast day, eats an egg, and there is a chicken inside. Because the other day we sat in a tavern in the Campo-flore, and made a collation, and eat eggs, and I, opening an egg, saw that there was a young chicken in it, which I showed to my companion, and then he said, 'Eat it quickly before the host sees it, for if he sees it, then you will be obliged to give a carlino or a julio for a hen, because it is the custom here that, when the host places anything on the table, you must pay for it, for they will not take it back. And when he sees there is a young hen in the egg, he will say, Pay me for the hen, because he reckons a small one the same as a large one.' And I immediately sucked up the egg, and with it the chicken, and afterwards I bethought me that it was Friday, and I said to my companion. 'You have caused me to commit a mortal sin, in eating flesh on Friday.' And he said that it is not a mortal sin, nor even a venial sin, because that embryo of a chicken is not reckoned other than an egg till it is born; and he told me that it is as in cheeses, in which there are sometimes worms, and in cherries, and fresh peas and beans, yet they are eaten on Fridays, and also in the vigils of the apostles. But the hosts are such rogues, that they say that they are flesh, that they may have more money. Then I went away, and thought about it. And, _per Deum_! Magister Ortuinus, I am much troubled, and I know not how I ought to rule myself. If I went to ask advice of a courtier [of the papal court], I know that they have not good consciences. It seems to me that these young hens in the eggs are flesh, because the matter is already formed and figured in members and bodies of an animal, and it has life; it is otherwise with worms in cheeses and other things, because worms are reputed for fishes, as I have heard from a physician, who is a very good naturalist. Therefore I ask you very earnestly, that you will give me your reply on this question. Because if you hold that it is a mortal sin, then I will purchase an absolution here, before I return to Germany. Also you must know that our master Jacobus de Hochstraten has obtained a thousand florins from the bank, and I think that with these he will gain his cause, and the devil confound that John Reuchlin, and the other poets and jurists, because they will be against the church of God, that is, against the theologists, in whom is