that San Luigi dropped down on his knees, and his lily became disarranged; and while he was picking himself up San Sebastiano rolled the surplice into a ball and tossed it over to San Pancrazio, who threw it back to him; and the two saints played ball with it quite merrily for some minutes, and all the time San Luigi was protesting that he had not brought it out for that purpose, and beseeching them not to be so frivolous. But the game amused them to such an extent that they were now running to and fro upon the bank and taking long shots at each other. San Sebastiano had just made a particularly clever catch, but in returning the ball he over-balanced himself and tumbled splash into the pool. This had a bad effect on his aim, and instead of the ball going in the direction he intended—that is to say, towards San Pancrazio—it flew straight in San Luigi's face. He was still holding up his lily for a screen, and consequently it was crushed and broken and all the blooms destroyed; and he seemed so grieved at this that the two friends—for San Sebastiano immediately swam to the side and climbed out of the pool—tried to console him by telling him that they would get him another in two winks of an eye.
But San Luigi said that was no good, because he always got his lilies off his altars down in the world, and no others would suit him; and there were none there now because it was not his festa till to-morrow, and nobody would offer him any lilies till then.
When they heard this San Sebastiano and San Pancrazio burst into roars of laughter, and they made such a noise that the Padre Eterno, who was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, sent one of the Cherubim from His Aureola to know what it was all about.
San Pancrazio jumped into his tunic and put his bulla round his neck, while San Sebastiano laced his sandals for him, and then
