"Perhaps," says Jurgen, "I ought not to tell you who I am. But what is life without confidence in one another? Besides, you appear a boy of remarkable discretion. So I will confide in you that I am Pope John the Twentieth, Heaven's regent upon Earth, now visiting this place upon Celestial business which I am not at liberty to divulge more particularly, for reasons that will at once occur to a young man of your unusual cleverness." "Oh, but I say! that is droll. Do you just wait a moment!" cried the boy angel. His bright face vanished, with a whisking of brown curls: and Jurgen carefully re-read the cantrap of the Master Philologist. "Yes, I have found, I think, the way to use such magic," observes Jurgen. Presently the young angel re-appeared at the parapet. "I say, messire! I looked on the Register--all popes are admitted here the moment they die, without inquiring into their private affairs, you know, so as to avoid any unfortunate scandal,--and we have twenty-three Pope Johns listed. And sure enough, the mansion prepared for John the Twentieth is vacant. He seems to be the only pope that is not in Heaven." "Why, but of course not," says Jurgen, complacently, "inasmuch as you see me, who was once Bishop of Rome and servant to the servants of God, standing down here on this cinder-heap." "Yes, but none of the others in your series appears to place you. John the Nineteenth says he never heard of you, and not to bother him in the middle of a harp lesson--" "He died before my accession, naturally." "--And John the Twenty-first says he thinks they lost count somehow, and that there never was any Pope John the Twentieth. He says you must be an impostor." "Ah, professional jealousy!" sighed Jurgen: "dear me, this is very sad, and gives one a poor opinion of human nature. Now, my boy, I put it to you fairly, how could there have been a twenty-first unless there had been a twentieth? And what becomes of the great principle of papal infallibility when a pope admits to a mistake in elementary arithmetic? Oh, but this is a very dangerous heresy, let me tell you, an Inquisition matter, a consistory business! Yet, luckily, upon his own contention, this Pedro Juliani--" "And that was his name, too, for he told me! You evidently know all about it, messire," said the young angel, visibly impressed.