And left Hernando by the tomb,
To pass his Wedding Night.
Southey’s “Letters from Spain and Portugal.”
FATHER COBOS’ HINT.
(LAS INDIRECTAS DE PADRE COBOS.)
A certain Father Superior of, I don’t know where, used to take such delicious cups of chocolate as only holy friars do. An intimate friend of the friar, who was extremely fond of chocolate, began visiting him very frequently, and always at the hour in which his reverence drank his chocolate, the friar being so courteous as to always order another cup for his visitor. But as this friend abused the father’s hospitality by coming day after day, the latter complained of this sponging tendency, whereupon a lay-friar, whose name was Father Cobos, declared that it fell to him to give him a hint to drop this habit. To this the Father Superior agreed. Noticing soon after that his friend no longer came to the convent, and desirous to know the lay-friar’s hint, he asked him after a fortnight what he had said to make his friend leave off coming even to see him.
“I gave him a hint,” replied Father Cobos. “I said, ‘Look you, Don Fulano, don’t be so disobliging as to take your chocolate at home; for the Father Superior says you are such a tremendous glutton that it warms the cockles of his heart every time he sees you.’”
The Father Superior was so amused at this that he divulged the story, and since then the hints of Padre Cobos have become proverbial throughout Spain.
Juan Martinez Villergas.