Then they brought them up a dish of apples, and they were very good tasted fruit. Then said Matthew, "May we eat apples, since they were such by and with which the serpent deceived our first mother Eve?"
Then said Gaius:
"Apples were they with which we were beguiled;
Yet sin, not apples, hath our souls defiled.
Apples forbid, if ate, corrupt the blood;
To eat such, when commanded, does us good.
Drink of His flagons, then, thou Church, His dove,
And eat His apples who are sick of love."
Then said Matthew, "I made the objection, because I, a while since, was sick with eating of fruit."
Gaius. Forbidden fruit will make you sick; but not what our Lord has allowed.
While they were thus talking, they were presented with another dish, and it was a dish of nuts. Then said some at the table, "Nuts spoil tender teeth, specially the teeth of children;" which, when Gaius heared, he said;
"Hard texts are nuts (I will not call them cheaters),
Whose shells do keep their kernels from the eaters;
Ope then the shells, and you shall have the meat:
They here are brought for you to crack and eat."
Then were they very merry, and sat at the table a long time, talking of many things. Then said the old gentleman, "My good landlord, while we are cracking your nuts, if you please, do you open this riddle;
"A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he cast away, the more he had."
Then they all gave good heed, wondering what good Gaius would say: so he sat still awhile, and then thus replied: