"Only fancy," said the
Salvation Army girl, watching the friar out of sight, "only fancy making
such a fool of one's self!"
The great hood of the friars, which is drawn over the head in Zurbaran's
ecstatic picture, is turned to use when the friars are busy. As a pocket
it relieves the over-burdened hands. A bottle of the local white wine
made by the brotherhood at Genoa, and sent to this house by the West, is
carried in the cowl as a present to the stranger at the gates. The
friars tell how a brother resolved, at Shrovetide, to make pancakes, and
not only to make, but also to toss them. Those who chanced to be in the
room stood prudently aside, and the brother tossed boldly. But that was
the last that was seen of his handiwork. Victor Hugo sings in _La_
_Legende des Siecles_ of disappearance as the thing which no creature
is able to achieve: here the impossibility seemed to be accomplished by
quite an ordinary and a simple pancake. It was clean gone, and there was
an end of it. Nor could any explanation of this ceasing of a pancake
from the midst of the visible world be so much as divined by the
spectators.
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