You must have heard about how Anton Pilgram dealt with the Brno councillors. To this day, Brno's citizens are still laughing at that crooked fiasco until they are holding their stomachs. I thought, well, Master Anton is just too much of a softie. He should have banged the table and that would have been that. My Hans would have handled them differently. They'd rather pay than have their noses punched in by a stone master.

My Hans is also a stonemason. It's only been a few years since that scrape with the crooked phial, and here it was again. This time the lords of the parish didn't want to pay for a change. They said Hans drinks beer rather than works, that he's expensive as hell and all that.

But there's a big difference between the gentlemen from the town hall and the gentlemen from the parish. You have to watch out for that. And so we finally did it like Master Anton. Hans told the clergymen that he would only finish one window and that he didn't want any more money. It stands to reason they weren't against it. When he finished the job, we left Brno in a hurry.

And the reverend pastors and chaplains were amazed when they saw what was left of us on the church. Hans had carved a grinning little man on the stone window, sticking his naked bottom out at the whole town. Oh, my. Good for them.

And now just between you and me. The little man is actually Hans. But I'm carved there too, but I can't see over Hans. Not that it's anybody's business, but we're just so fucked up in there, it's like we really, really like each other.