"'Thanked be God that you yaf soule and lif, Yet saw I not this day so faire a wif In all the chirche, God so save me.'"[229] Have we not here already Tartuffe and Elmire? But the monk is with a farmer, and can go to work more quickly and directly. When the compliments ended, he thinks of the substance, and asks the lady to let him talk alone with Thomas. He must inquire after the state of his soul: "'I wol with Thomas speke a litel throw: Thise curates ben so negligent and slow To gropen tendrely a conscience.... Now, dame,' quod he, 'jeo vous die sanz doute, Have I nat of a capon but the liver, And of your white bred nat but a shiver, And after that a rosted pigges hed (But I ne wolde for me no beest were ded), Than had I with you homly suffisance. I am a man of litel sustenance, My spirit hath his fostring in the Bible. My body is ay so redy and penible To waken, that my stomak is destroied.'"[230] Poor man, he raises his hands to heaven, and ends with a sigh. The wife tells him her child died a fortnight before. Straightway he manufactures a miracle; how could he earn his money in any better way? He had a revelation of this death in the "dortour" of the convent; he saw the child carried to paradise; he rose with his brothers, "with many a tere trilling on our cheke," and they sang a _Te Deum_: "'For, sire and dame, trusteth me right wel, Our orisons ben more effectuel, And more we seen of Cristes secree thinges Than borel folk, although that they be kinges. We live in poverte, and in abstinence, And borel folk in richesse and dispence.... Lazer and Dives liveden diversely, And divers guerdon hadden they therby.'"[231] Presently he spurts out a whole sermon, in a loathsome style, and with an interest which is plain enough. The sick man, wearied, replies that he has already given half his fortune to all kinds of monks, and yet he continually suffers. Listen to the grieved exclamation, the true indignation of the mendicant monk, who sees himself threatened by the competition of a brother of the cloth to share his client, his revenue, his booty, his food-supplies: "The frere answered: 'O Thomas, dost thou so? What nedeth you diverse freres to seche? What nedeth him that hath a parfit leche, To sechen other leches in the toun? Your inconstance is your confusion. Hold ye than me, or elles our covent, To pray for you ben insufficient? Thomas, that jape n' is not worth a mite, Your maladie is for we han to lite.'"[232] Recognize the great orator; he employs even the grand style to keep the supplies from being cut off: "'A, yeve that covent half a quarter otes; And yeve that covent four and twenty grotes; And yeve that frere a peny, and let him go: Nay, nay, Thomas, it may no thing be so. What is a ferthing worth parted on twelve? Lo, eche thing that is oned in himself Is more strong, than whan it is yscatered... Thou woldest han our labour al for nought.'"[233]