"And then I would speak of those Mittens with which Xenophon reproaches the degenerate Persians, of those Roman finger-stalls employed in the olive crop, and even of that glutton named Pithyllus, who carried delicacy so far as to make a Glove of a sheath of skin for his tongue." The good old man, kindled by his enthusiasm, became transformed; he seemed desirous to take upon himself the whole history of the Glove, which he embroidered at once with fancy and the most varied anecdote that his wonderful memory could supply. After having distinguished, in the Middle Ages, many sorts of Gloves, such as the /usual/ Glove, the /falconer's/ Glove, the /workman's/ Glove, the /feminine/ Glove, the /military/ Glove, the /seignorial/ Glove, and the /liturgical/ Glove, he attacked with a zest bordering on frenzy the part of the Glove of the knights and men in armour of the heroic battles of the past, at a time when individual prowess could still display itself; he quoted the Chronicles of Du Guesclin and De Guigneville:-- "Rich basinets he ordered to be brought, And Gloves with iron spikes with horror fraught." He showed me, without recourse to aught but his own erudition, the transformation of these iron gauntlets, first into mail, like the coat, then into movable plates of flat iron, adapted to the movements of the hand; he explained to me the lining, where the palm was of leather or stuff, and at last, exhuming the ordinances of 1311, he made me penetrate into the details of the manufacture:-- "That no one should make Gloves of plates, except the plates are tinned or varnished, or beaten, or covered with black leather, red leather, or samite, and that under the head of every nail should be set a rivet of gold." Ah, my fair friend, if you could have seen this strange man so suddenly taken by my subject, you would have regarded me with pity, for I could not help pouting a little at this old dean, and felt myself attacked by a sudden cowardice, at the mere announcement of the formidable researches which were to be undergone. I took my humble leave of my most learned master, humiliated, floored by the extent of his knowledge, his laborious zeal, his powerful faith, his stubborn will. I saw that in giving you my word for a poor Glove, I had given it to a demon, who showed me a Glove of an immense shagreen skin, containing the world and its history--fantastic as a nightmare, which weighed me down. Then I swore to sacrifice a part for the rest, and not to build a cathedral when a simple cushion at your feet would suffice me for my heedless chatter. Accept then favourably this act of contrition, and let me be fully pardoned, if, /à propos/ of the Glove, I bound along madly like a young kid, without pity for the history of costume and historic documents, which I trample under my feet, rather than see myself buried under their pyramidal bundles. That which my old friend had probably neglected is the Legend, and to that I run.