Then she put it to her
mouth and bit it.
"She can't be going to eat it," thought the Saint, and fixed her
with his stoniest stare.
"Well," said the woman, in a somewhat shriller key, "who'd have
thought it! A saint, too!"
Then she did an unaccountable thing. She hunted an old piece of
tape out of her pocket, and tied to crosswise, with a big loop,
round the thaler, and hung it round the neck of the little Saint.
Then she went away.
"The only possible explanation," said the Goblin, "is that it's a
bad one."
* * *
"What is that decoration your neighbour is wearing?" asked a wyvern
that was wrought into the capital of an adjacent pillar.
The Saint was ready to cry with mortification, only, being of stone,
he couldn't.
"It's a coin of--ahem!--fabulous value," replied the Goblin
tactfully.
And the news went round the Cathedral that the shrine of the little
stone Saint had been enriched by a priceless offering.
"After all, it's something to have the conscience of a goblin," said
the Saint to himself.
The church mice were as poor as ever. But that was their function.
THE SOUL OF LAPLOSHKA
Laploshka was one of the meanest men I have ever met, and quite one
of the most entertaining. He said horrid things about other people
in such a charming way that one forgave him for the equally horrid
things he said about oneself behind one's back. Hating anything in
the way of ill-natured gossip ourselves, we are always grateful to
those who do it for us and do it well.
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