Il chante pour les filles
Qui n’ont pas d’ami.
Il ne chante pas pour moi
J’en ai un, Dieu merci,
Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?
Serai-je nonnette, je crois que non!
Enter Dennys, disguised as a mendicant friar.
Dennys: Christ, and His Mother, and all the Saints be with you, daughter. Whew! Your porter’s a lusty-sinewed rogue, and he was loath to let me enter, saying that he and the maid he’s courting were locked up in a church by one of my order and not let out till he had paid toll of all that he had in his purse (throws back his head and laughs), and I asked him if the maid lost something too, but....
Sister Pilar (very coldly): What is your pleasure, brother?
Dennys: My pleasure? Need you ask that of a mendicant friar? Why, my pleasure is the grease of St. John of the golden beard, the good sweat of gold coins—that is my pleasure. “Nothing for myself, yet drop it into the sack,” as your proverb has it. And, in truth, ’tis by the sweat of our brow that we, too, live; oh, we are most learned and diligent advocates, and, though we may skin our clients’ purses, down to robbing them of their mule and stripping them of their cloak, yet we are tireless in their cause, appealing from court to court till we reach the Supreme Judge and move Him to set free our poor clients, moaning in the dungeons of Purgatory. There is no cause too feeble for my pleading; by my prayers a hundred stepmothers, fifty money-lenders, eighty monks, and twenty-five apostate nuns have won to Paradise; so, daughter if you will but ... (catches sight of Pepita and Juanito who have stolen up, and are listening to him open-mouthed) Godmorrow, lord and lady! I wonder ... has this poor friar any toy or sugar-plum to please little lords and ladies? (Pepita and Juanito exchange shy, excited looks, laugh and hang their heads.) Now, my hidalgo, tell me would you liefer have a couple of ripe figs or two hundred years off Purgatory? (He winks at Sister Pilar, who has been staring at him with a cold surprise.)