There is another of these queer anecdotes which will serve to show that the old monks were by no means destitute of a sense of humor. A certain young Salomon, son of the Count of Ramsweg, was a student of the abbey school, and something of a snob among his fellow-scholars. Notker, Ratpert, Tutilo and Hartmann were of as good family as he, and they did not enjoy his behavior. Finally, through favoritism, Salomon came to be abbot of six monasteries and Bishop of Constance in addition. But in spite of these dignities he had a singular predilection for the Abbey of St Gall, and was accustomed to put on a surplice and go about the place attending the offices like a regular monk—which, by the way, he had no right to do. His old friends found this out, and raised so much of a stir about it that he ceased from the practice. But at night he still persisted in entering the abbey and aiding in the services. Rudiger, one of the confederates, was therefore set to watch for the coming of the intruding bishop, and when Salomon slipped along toward the church in the darkness the watcher suddenly thrust a light in his face and saw who it was. Then this valiant Rudiger swore the largest oath permitted in those sacred precincts, for he asseverated “by St. Gall” that no stranger in their conventual habit should be around the cloisters at night. Salomon offered endless apologies, and promised to secure permission from the abbot before he wore the surplice again. And he even turned his discomfiture into a partial victory by begging Rudiger to present this request in his behalf. The petition, so voiced, came duly before the “senate” of that monkish republic, which happened, unfortunately for the avaricious and rapacious Salomon, to include his four opposers—“Hartmann, who composed the melody to the _Sanctus humili prece_; Notker the Stammerer, who made _Sequences_; Ratpert, who wrote _Ardua spes mundi_, and Tutilo, who was the author of _Hodie cantandus_.” These men finally allowed him to come in as usual, provided he would entirely demit his canon’s raiment, and be nothing but a Benedictine monk while within the walls. Somehow Salomon conceded even this, and one day brought a splendid gift—a gold box encrusted with jewels and containing relics—which he offered to the abbey. All this looked in the direction that the monks feared; and they therefore rejected his present with some scorn. But it did not take long to lift Salomon the Simonist to the Abbacy of Reichenau, and then Archbishop Sfortto contrived at length to secure the wealthy St. Gall for his favorite. Thus Salomon, the detested, became, in spite of all opposition, the abbot of that celebrated cloister.