‘We don’t want none of your cloth here,’ said the disciple of St. Crispin. ‘If there were a God, should we be as wretched as we are?’
‘Yes, there is. I am His servant,’ said the Vicar.
‘You His servant? Why yer father bought yer the living, and a nice living it is; you are yer father’s servant, not the Lord’s.’
‘But, my good man—’ said the Vicar.
‘Don’t “good man” me,’ was the angry reply.
‘But we come for your good.’
‘That’s what you all say; and I’ll believe it when I see you and the likes of you give up that part of the tithes which was intended for the poor.’
‘I come in the name of the Lord as His messenger,’ said the Vicar in his most commanding tones.
‘The Lord’s receiver, I think,’ said the shoemaker cynically, ‘for you get all you can in His name.’
‘It is no use leaving anything here,’ said the Vicar to his curates.