Stories Toto Told Me
I—About San Pietro and San Paolo
Once upon a time, sir, the people in Rome were building two churches, the one for San Pietro on the Monte Vaticano, and the other for San Paolo outside the walls of the city. The two Saints used to spend all their spare time sitting on one of the balconies of heaven and watching the builders, for they were both very anxious about their churches. San Pietro desired to have his church finished before San Paolo's, and so, every night after it was dark, he used to leave the keys of heaven in the porch, and ask his brother, Sant' Andrea, to give an eye to the gate while he went round the corner for a minute or two. Then he would slip down to San Paolo's church and take to pieces the work which the builders had done during the day, and if there were any carvings or pillars or things of that sort which took his fancy, he would carry them away and build them into his own church, patching up the part he had taken them from so well that no one could tell the difference. And so, while the builders of the church of San Pietro made a progress which was wonderful, the builders of the church of San Paolo did not make any progress at all.
This went on for a long while, and San Paolo became more
