THE PRIEST WITH THE ENVIOUS EYES
There was once a priest who lived in the parish of St. Nicholas. He served St. Nicholas for some years, and all his earnings were that he had neither house nor home, nor a roof over his head. So our good priest got together all his keys, and seeing the icon of St. Nicholas, struck it down, and left his parish to go whithersoever his eyes should guide him. And he went roaming on his way.
Suddenly an unknown man met him. "How do you do, good man?" he said to the pope.[1] "Whither are you going? and whence do you come?" "Take me with you as a companion." So they went off together. They went on some versts, and became tired. It was time to rest.
Now the pope had two biscuits, and his new friend had two wafers[2]. The pope said to him: "We will first of all eat up your wafers, and we will then go on with the biscuits."
"All right!" the unknown man said to him. "Let us first eat up my wafers, and leave your biscuits for a dessert."
So they ate the wafers, ate them all up, and they were fully sated, and there were still wafers over.
So the pope became envious. "Why," he thought, "I will steal them." The old man lay down to sleep after dinner, and the pope was all agog to see how he could steal those wafers. The old man went to sleep; so the pope abstracted the wafers from his pocket and silently began eating them.
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