A Jay of Italy

by Bernard Capes

'The villain! to call himself a Franciscan, a lowly Franciscan, and pretend to read the stars! How about his prophecy now?'

'Why, he holds to it.'

'What! that I have but eleven years in all to reign—less than one to live?'

'Just that—no more.'

'Now, is it not a wicked schism from the plain humility of his founder? A curse on their spirituals and conventuals! This fellow to claim kinship with the stars—profess to be in their confidence, to share heaven's secrets? Dear Jacopo, sweet Jacopo! is it not well to cleanse this earth of such lying prophets, that truth may have standing-room?'

'Ask truth, not me.'

'Nay, not to grieve truth's heart—the onus shall be ours. This same Franciscan—this soothsaying monk—where hast lodged him?'

'In the "Hermit's Cell."'

'Ah, old jester! He shall prove his asceticism thereby. Let practised abstinence save him in such pass. He shall eat his words—an everlasting banquet. A fat astrologer, by the token, as I hear.'

'He went in, fat.'