And so would I counsel you to do."
"Forsooth, Father Fox," quoth the wolf, "and so, thank God, I do,
as near as I can. For when I go to my meal, I take no other
company with me but such sure brethren as are of mine own nature,
whose consciences are not weak, I warrant you, but their stomachs
are as strong as mine." "Well, then, no matter," quoth Father Fox.
But when he heard afterward, by his confession, that he was so
great a ravener that he devoured and spent sometimes so much
victuals at a meal that the price of them would well keep some
poor man with his wife and children almost all the week, then he
prudently reproved that point in him, and preached him a sermon of
his own temperance. For he never used, he said, to pass the value
of sixpence at a meal--no, nor even that much, "For when I bring
home a goose," quoth he, "it is not out of the poulterer's shop,
where folk find them with their feathers ready plucked and see
which is the fattest, and yet for sixpence buy and choose the
best; but out of the housewife's house, at first hand, which can
supply them somewhat cheaper, you know, than the poulterer can.
Nor yet can I be suffered to see them plucked, and stand and
choose them by day, but am fain by night to take one at adventure.
And when I come home, I am fain to do the labour to pluck it
myself too.
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