"It's a secret," said he, with a pleased smile, "which I shall be glad to
communicate to you."

The abbot was a man of taste, for though he affected sobriety he had the
choicest wines and the most delicious dishes on the table. A splendid
salmon-trout was brought, which made him smile with pleasure, and
seasoning the good fare with a jest, he said in Latin that we must taste
it as it was fish, and that it was right to fast a little.

While he was talking the abbot kept a keen eye on me, and as my fine
dress made him feel certain that I had nothing to ask of him he spoke at
ease.

When dinner was over the chancellor bowed respectfully and went out. Soon
after the abbot took me over the monastery, including the library, which
contained a portrait of the Elector of Cologne in semi-ecclesiastical
costume. I told him that the portrait was a good though ugly likeness,
and drew out of my pocket the gold snuffbox the prince had given me,
telling him that it was a speaking likeness. He looked at it with
interest, and thought his highness had done well to be taken in the dress
of a grand-master. But I perceived that the elegance of the snuff-box did
no harm to the opinion the abbot had conceived of me. As for the library,
if I had been alone it would have made me weep. It contained nothing
under the size of folio, the newest books were a hundred years old, and
the subject-matter of all these huge books was solely theology and
controversy. There were Bibles, commentators, the Fathers, works on canon
law in German, volumes of annals, and Hoffman's dictionary.

"I suppose your monks have private libraries of their own," I said,