“And who is he, graceless boy?” asked his aunt. “Dr. Martin Luther, the Augustinian friar of Wittenberg. If all parsons were like him, I’d be a holier man and a better listener at church.” “He is a pious young monk, I’ve heard,” said his aunt coldly, “but naturally not comparable to His Holiness. Of course you, my Lord Graf, have often heard the present Pope turn multitudes from their sins by his burning eloquence.” “I have certainly seen him appear in great state at St. John Lateran,” I replied, with twitching lips, “on Corpus Christi day, when thousands of people knelt to adore him in a place so holy that the former Pope Benedict VIII--of blessed memory--said that if the folk only knew how great indulgence was afforded by a mere visit to that church they would sin yet more.” “And his sermon?” “I regret, my Lady Abbess, on that day His Holiness was suffering from a cold. He could only hold up his fingers to bestow the benediction. I merely mention the occasion as witness to the veneration in which the Romans hold the most sacred Pontiff.” Moritz looked at me reproachfully. He had evidently expected a more active defence of his heterodoxy. Perhaps the heady wine--which I was being forced very reluctantly to imbibe by my importunate host--was making me reckless; I resolved not to disappoint Moritz. “But on thousands of other occasions,” spoke Ilsa, evidently deeply interested, “the Lord Pope has preached to the multitude, to the vast saving of their souls. A wandering Dominican, very dirty and very holy, told me as much yesterday.” “Then,” I replied dryly and rashly, “your gracious Ladyship was very ill-informed, for I grieve to tell you his present Holiness, though a very learned and urbane prince, is better at playing cards than saying masses, and a better huntsman than preacher.” It must have been the wine that made me throw this out bluntly. I saw the abbess nigh swooning back in her chair, muttering “blasphemy!” Poor Ilsa turned deathly pale, Moritz grinned in manifest glee, but his father almost jumped from his seat, his face growing livid. “God’s death! Take back your words--” “Father! Father! Our guest,” cried Ilsa in dismay, while Moritz caught his sleeve, at the same time asserting that “He has only said what I have always said.” Unwilling to brawl then and there, I turned on my angry host very coolly. “My gracious Lord,” I said, “I do not mean to slander the Sacred Pontiff. I was about to add that the Pope suffers from an ulcer which prevents him from executing the various sacred offices, and that his physicians recommend to him divers innocent diversions.” “Ah! Very well,” quoth the Graf, mollified for the moment, and settling back in his great chair. But the abbess and Ilsa still stared at me ominously, accepting my last words at true value.