“What is the matter with you, father?”
But he will not answer him, and the child takes a pistol, and says to his father:
“If you will not tell me what is the matter with you, I will shoot first you and myself afterwards.”
The father then said that he would tell him, (and he told him) how that his mother and he had made a vow to go to Rome if they had a child, and that they had never been there.
The child said to him, “It is for me that this vow was made, and it is I who will go and fulfil it.”
He says “Good-bye,” and sets out.
He was seven years on the road, and begged his bread. At last he comes to the Holy Father, and tells him what has brought him there. Our Holy Father puts him in a room alone for an hour.
When he comes out, he says to him, “Oh, you have made a mistake; you have made me stay there two hours at least.”
Our Holy Father tells him “No!”—that he has been there only one hour. And he puts him into another room for two hours.
When he came out from there he said, “You have made me stop more than two hours.”