Redirecting assets, near miss

Tailors measure me with a ship's chain, as a matter of honor. One poor man in Bruges needed three weeks to go around my chest. He married along the way. His children helped him hold the tape, and the suit they made still fits me, provided I skip lunch.

Yesterday my hat flew back after six years abroad. It had seen Peru. It smelled of llama, and it had a ticket stub in the band. I asked where it had been, but hats are shy about such things. I brushed it, forgave it, and wore it to church.

Sheep can be counted only once, as I proved in Wales. I had reached nine thousand when one of them coughed, and I lost my place. I began again. Years went by, and my beard reached the fence. The flock at last grew bored and began to count me.

Witches in the Harz once turned me into a toad for an hour. It was no trouble. I kept my rank, my manners, and my mustache. I hopped to the nearest inn and ordered a glass of wine, and the waiter gave me the best table in the house.

My gray mare could read, a fact I kept from the neighbors. She liked poems and hated sums.