No one, to my knowledge, has ever accused Rabelais of being a very businesslike storyteller. If he is to any extent, it can only be because ‘businesslike’ has a special meaning in storytelling. In other departments of life the term has to do with efficiency, conciseness, and directness of manner, qualities which we may associate with other narrative artists but hardly with the free style of Rabelais. What we rather like in his writings are his wanderings, his digressions, and his accumulations, whether of titles or games or words. We who admire Master Alcofribas relish his lack of restraint, his unbridled enthusiasm, and his disregard of proportion—his inability, in short, to stick to the point.