I neither want confession nor a prayer,
But anxiously desire what is due to pay;
For if incautiously I should delay,
Long time 'would be ere I the monk should see,
With other matters he'll so busy be.
But what can you the holy fathers owe?
To which the lady said:—what don't you know?
A tithe, my dear, the friars always claim.—
What tithe? cried he; it surely has a name.
Not know! astonishingly, replied the wife.—