“Alas!” said Lamme, “my wife!”
And he would have emptied his bottle of wine there and then had not Ulenspiegel laid a hand on his arm and suggested that it were fairer that the drink should be given to him that had none. “Besides,” he added, “to drink thus distractedly profits naught but one’s kidneys.”
“Well said,” answered Lamme, handing his friend the bottle, “but will you drink, I wonder, to any better purpose?”
Ulenspiegel took the bottle, drank his fill, then handed it back again.
“Call me a Spaniard,” he said, “if I’ve left enough to make a minnow drunk!”
Lamme inspected the bottle. Then, without ever ceasing to groan, he rummaged in his wallet and produced another bottle, and another piece of sausage which he cut up in slices and began to munch in the most melancholy fashion.
“Do you never stop eating, Lamme?” asked Ulenspiegel.
“Often, my son,” he replied. “But now I am eating to drive away sad thoughts. Where are you, wife of mine?” And as he spoke, Lamme wiped away a tear. After which he cut himself ten slices of sausage.
“Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, “you should not eat so quickly, taking no thought at all for the poor pilgrim.”
Lamme, who was still whimpering, gave four of the slices to Ulenspiegel, who ate them up immediately, and was much affected by their good flavour. But Lamme said, eating and crying all at the same time: