His grace the most gracious father in God, wore a mantle of extraordinary fineness and beauty, the material of which was composed of every tenth hair taken from all the citizens of Leaphigh, who most cheerfully submitted to be shaved, in order that the wants of his most eminent humility might be decently supplied.

The mantle, wove from such a warp and such a woof, was necessarily very large; and it really appeared to me that the prelate did not very well know what to do with so much of it, more especially as the contributions include a new robe annually.

I was now desirous of getting a sight of his tail; for, knowing that the Leaphighers take great pride in the length and beauty of that appurtenance, I very naturally supposed that a saint who wore so fine and glorious a robe, by way of humility, must have recourse to some novel expedient to mortify himself on his sensitive subject, at least.
I found that the ample proportions of the mantle concealed not only the person, but most of the movements of the archbishop; and it was with many doubts of my success that I led the brigadier behind the episcopal train to reconnoitre.

The result disappointed expectation again.

Instead of being destitute of a tail, or of concealing that with which nature had supplied him beneath his mantle, the most gracious dignitary wore no less than six caudae, viz., his own, and five others added to it, by some subtle process of clerical ingenuity that I shall not attempt to explain; one "bent on the other," as the captain described them in a subsequent conversation.