Antonio, who best understood the words Rutilio sung, cried, "Well sung, Rutilio, if thou hast thyself composed those verses, thou art no bad poet; though I do not know how a dancing-master can be a good one; nevertheless, I am wrong in saying this, for I remember well that in my own land of Spain, there were poets of all professions." Maurice overheard him speak thus, and so did the prince and Periander, who could not sleep; and Maurice said, "It is very possible for an artizan to be a poet; poetry lying not in the fingers, but the mind; and the soul of a tailor is as capable of poetic feeling as that of a gentleman; for souls are all of equal rank, and of the same nature originally, but formed and fashioned by their Maker, and according to the temperament and disposition of the body in which each is enclosed, so appear they more or less learned and wise, and inclined to study and know the arts and sciences, and other things to which their stars dispose them. But in speaking of a poet, one generally says that he is _nascitur_, born such. I see no reason, then, to wonder at Rutilio being a poet, although he is a dancing-master." "And so great a one," said Antonio, "that he has cut capers in the air, even beyond the clouds." "Even so," answered Rutilio, who was listening all this time; "I made them even up in the sky, when I travelled in the witch's mantle from Tuscany to Norway, where I killed her when she changed into a wolf, as I have before told you." "That tale about men and women being turned into wolves, is a great error," said Maurice, "although it is believed by many." "How is it, then," asked Arnoldo, "that it is generally said, and held as a fact, that in England, troops of wolves go about the fields, who are human creatures that have been so transformed?" (Note 2). "In England," Maurice replied, "such things could not be, because not only are there no wolves in that fertile and cultivated country, but no noxious animals whatever, such as serpents, vipers, toads, spiders and scorpions; also it is a well-known fact, that if any poisonous animal is brought thither from other parts, when it arrives there, it dies; and if the earth of this island be carried to any other place, and a viper be surrounded with this earth, it dares not leave the circle so made in which it is imprisoned, and runs round and round until it dies." (Note 3.)