WISDOM’S WAGES AND FOLLY’S PAY

enough, but the sweat ran down Babo’s face like drops on
the window in an April shower. At last they came to a
great wide plain, where neither stock nor stone was to be
seen, but only a gallows-tree, upon which one poor wight
hung dancing upon nothing at all, and there night caught
them again.

“ Aha!” said Babo to himself. ‘ This time I shall have
bread and my master none.”

But listen to what happened. Up stepped the wise
man to the gallows, and gave it a sharp rap with his staff.
Then, lo and behold! the gallows was gone, and in its
_ place stood a fine inn, with lights in the windows, and a
landlord bowing and smiling in the doorway, and a fire
roaring in the kitchen, and the smell of the good things
cooking filling the air all around, so that only to sniff did
one’s heart good.

Poor Babo let fall the stone he hd carried all day. A
stone it was, anda stone he let it fall.

“* Born a fool, live a fool, die a fool,’” said Agricola.
“But come in, Babo, come in; here is room enough for
two.” So that night Babo had a good supper and a sound
sleep, and that is a cure for most of a body’s troubles in
this world.

The third day of their travelling they came to farms
and villages, and there Simon Agricola began to think of
showing some of those tricks of magic that were to make
his fortune and Babo’s into the bargain.

At last they came to a blacksmith’s shop, and there was
the smith hard at work, dinging and donging, and making
sweet music with hammer and anvil. In walked Simon
Agricola-and gave him good- -day. He put his fingers into
his purse, and brought out all the money he had in the

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