The wife said, "We have not time enough now; we can go afterwards
just as well."
The lady was confined of a boy. The boy grows up and he sees that
his father is constantly sad, and he finds him often crying in all
the corners. The little boy was now seven years old, and the mother
had not yet decided to go to Rome. One day this young boy goes into
his father's bed-room, and finds him weeping again. He therefore said
to him:
"What is the matter with you, father?"
But he will not answer him, and the child takes a pistol, and says
to his father:
"If you will not tell me what is the matter with you, I will shoot
first you and myself afterwards."
The father then said that he would tell him, (and he told him) how
that his mother and he had made a vow to go to Rome if they had a
child, and that they had never been there.
The child said to him, "It is for me that this vow was made, and it
is I who will go and fulfil it."
He says "Good-bye," and sets out.
He was seven years on the road, and begged his bread. At last he comes
to the Holy Father, and tells him what has brought him there. Our
Holy Father puts him in a room alone for an hour.
When he comes out, he says to him, "Oh, you have made a mistake;
you have made me stay there two hours at least."
Our Holy Father tells him "No!"--that he has been there only one
hour. And he puts him into another room for two hours.
When he came out from there he said, "You have made me stop more than
two hours."
He says to him, "No," and puts him in another room for three hours.
When he came out of that he said, "You have only left me there three
minutes."