Nay but wiles and deceits be many in this world! Nor can it grow better, or wiser, or nobler, unless the sayings which men, in the fulness of their hearts and their wine-cups, publish abroad, be regarded and reflected in the deeds they do the next morning. It fortuned that Owlglass had been carousing with companions, who, indeed, were neither worse nor better than was he himself in proper person; but who, for that he discharged the expenses of the tippling, was extolled to the skies by ruined gamesters, cunning and lying boon companions,—noble pothouse friends, whose faces, marred and scored like the table whereon, in grimy circlets, pot and glass lovingly stand together, would, in after days, look grimly forth from the tablets of memory, and brand the soul of any man but such a philosopher as was Owlglass. And elated and ennobled, besmouched and bemired, by their commendation, he descended from the throne of the wine-chamber, and set forth to come homeward, where he lay that night. Philosophy was in his heart beaming with placid face upon the world; from his countenance looked forth universal love of brother to brother, in bond, apparently as firm as that of Church, in truth, as rotten at the core, and Owlglass, in such thoughts as fumy wine bestoweth, was for a while no longer the roving knave, cheat, and cozener, but a true man filled full of impotent benevolence, clasping the world in drunken joy.

Therefore, master mine, marvel not if that in mazy glory, our good friend and brother journeyed on, and forgat what place it was where he should lie. And while that the stars ’gan to blink down upon him, he found that he had departed clean forth from the village, and was nigh unto another. “Nay,” quoth he, “but here must I find me a lodging, for I am aweary, and my steps be short and leaden.” So he shook away from himself the loathly praise and glorifyings of reeling brethren of the wine-pot, and diligently sought in that village for some house where he might sleep. But of a truth it was late, and no friendly door stood wide to let him enter. Coming at last unto the village end, he beheld a twinkling light, and he took counsel within him what he should do. Then crept he up privily unto the casement, and lay in wait thereby, and looked in and beheld how a boor did count the money, the which he had taken at the mart for a lusty yoke of oxen he had sold. “Nay,” thought Owlglass, “here be we close by the threshold of avarice, for i’ faith why should a man sit in the midst of the night to count and finger the greasy coin, the which by chaffering he hath obtained? Could he not i’ the morning’s light full as happily have set forth the gain?”

Money waxeth neither with counting nor with handling; and yet men tire not in the reckoning thereof. Better bid farewell unto a shiny Edward shovel-groat, say I, and let it work its office in many and divers pouches, than mar its silver beauty with the hot hands of a miser. For if that money be a great instrument of wicked wills; yet on its course it encourageth much and great good, and the evil that it doth is weighed down in the balance by a hundredfold of happiness. Put ye but a penny forth, my masters, in a faithful device, it will bud, and blossom, and fructify, and ripen, to the harvest of a thousand pound; but an if ye bestow it in evil design, it dieth in the hands where ye laid it, nor enricheth any, save the unsated innkeeper or the lurking thief. And that avarice is punished by its own miserly griping after gain, shall ye presently perceive set forth in the true chronicle of Master Owlglass, his doings and life. For hard by the boor sate his little son; and in children, mark me, with all their innocence, there be the seeds of greed; nay, the seeds of every vice and virtue under heaven.

Now he beheld how that his father, with trembling hands, and by a farthing candle, did count the moneys he had received, and the child lusted to become possessed of a penny, and besought that he should bestow it upon him. “Nay,” quoth the other roughly, “this must never be. What can a child like thee desire to have money for? Hast not food, and lodging, and raiment, bestowed on thee, and wouldst thou have money beside. Go to!” And he refused the child the gift which he beseeched of him. Yet the child would not be discouraged, but again besought his father, who denied him, and waxed wroth, and spake unto him saying: “If that thou dost seek to obtain of me aught of this, I will give it unto the black man without the casement, and put it forth to interest after that wise.” Yet he wist not that in the darkness of the night lay Owlglass hidden. Yet did the child, with speech and gesture, entreat a penny of his father. So, with violent hand, the father swept from the table all the fair marks he had received, and in an earthen pot bestowed them and held it forth through the casement, and said: “Here, black man, do thou take the money.” For he would affright the child. And Owlglass put forth his hand and took the pot of money; and like an evil doer fled forth unto the fields therewith rejoicing with an aching heart at the fortune which had thus come unto him.