Patteson occasionally went abroad with his master, probably attending him as his servant, which was often one of the offices of fools. The license of the latter also went abroad with the service of the former, and we are told that once, after he had been many years in More’s service, he attended his master, or at all events was present, at a dinner given in Guildhall, when the conversation fell upon More’s refusal to take the oath of supremacy. The conversation of the guests was interrupted by a query of the fool:--“Why, what aileth him,” cried Patteson, “that he will not swear? Wherefore should he stick to swear? I have sworn the oath myself.” Lord Campbell quotes another illustration of the license of this jester, from ‘Il Moro’, an Italian account of Sir Thomas More, printed at Florence, and dedicated to Cardinal Pole. The incident is supposed to be narrated by the Chancellor himself, and Lord Campbell is of opinion that it does not give us “a very exalted notion of the merriment caused by these simpletons.” Perhaps we might more correctly say, that the incident fails to convey a very elevated idea of the wit that raised the merriment. However this may be, here is the _trait_ in question:-- “Yesterday, while we were dining, Pattison” (so is the name here spelt) “seeing a guest with a very large nose, said, there was one at table who had been trading to the _Promontory of Noses_. All eyes were turned to the great nose, though we discreetly preserved silence, that the good man might not be abashed. Pattison, perceiving the mistake he had made, tried to set himself right, and said, ‘He lies who says the gentleman’s nose is large, for, on the faith of a true knight, it is rather a small one.’ At this, all being inclined to laugh, I made signs for the fool to be turned out of the room; but Pattison, who boasted that he brought every affair that he commenced to a happy conclusion, resisted, and, placing himself in my seat at the head of the table, said aloud, with my tone and gesture, ‘There is one thing I would have you to know,--that gentleman there has not the least bit of nose on his face.’”