So happed it one day, that he had in a great audience made an oration in a certain manner, in which he liked himself so well that at his dinner he thought he sat on thorns till he might hear how those who sat with him at his board would commend it. He sat musing a while, devising, as I thought afterward, upon some pretty proper way to bring it in withal. And at last, for lack of a better, lest he should have forborne the matter too long, he brought it even bluntly forth and asked us all who sat at his board's end--for at his own place in the midst there sat but himself alone--how well we liked his oration that he had made that day. But in faith, uncle, when that problem was once proposed, till it was full answered, no man, I believe, ate one morsel of meat more--every man was fallen in so deep a study for the finding of some exquisite praise. For he who should have brought out but a vulgar and common commendation, would have thought himself shamed for ever. Ten said we our sentences, by row as we sat, from the lowest unto the highest in good order, as though it had been a great matter of the common weal in a right solemn council. When it came to my part--I say it not, uncle, for a boast--methought that, by our Lady, for my part, I quit myself well enough! And I liked myself the better because methought that, being but a foreigner, my words went yet with some grace in the German tongue, in which, letting my Latin alone, it pleased me to show my skill. And I hoped to be liked the better because I saw that he who sat next to me, and should say his sentence after me, was an unlearned priest, for he could speak no Latin at all. But when he came forth for his part with my lord's commendation, the wily fox had been so well accustomed in court to the craft of flattery that he went beyond me by far. And then might I see by him what excellence a right mean wit may come to in one craft, if in all his life he studieth and busieth his wit about no more but that one. But I made afterward a solemn vow unto myself that if ever he and I were matched together at that board again, when we should fall to our flattery I would flatter in Latin, that he might contend with me no more. For though I could be content to be outrun by a horse, yet would I no more abide it to be outrun by an ass. But, uncle, here began now the game: he that sat highest and was to speak last, was a great beneficed man, and not only a doctor but also somewhat learned indeed in the laws of the church. A world was it to see how he marked every man's word who spoke before him! And it seemed that the more proper every word was, the worse he liked it, for the cumbrance that he had to study out a better one to surpass it. The man even sweated with the labour, so that he was fain now and then to wipe his face. Howbeit, in conclusion, when it came to his course, we who had spoken before him had so taken up all among us before that we had not left him one wise word to speak afterward.