“I’ll stand you one, you scandalous scamp,” replied Ulenspiegel.
“See how insolent he is,” said La Stevenyne.
“As insolent as you are beautiful,” answered Ulenspiegel.
Now La Stevenyne was sixty years old at least, and her face was like the fruit of the medlar, but all yellow with bile, and she had a large port-wine stain on her left cheek.
When the innkeeper had had his drink, he paid the bill and departed. The seven butchers meanwhile made sundry knowing grimaces at the constables and La Stevenyne. One of them indicated by a gesture that he held Ulenspiegel for a simpleton, and that he would be able to do for him very easily. But all the time that he was putting out his tongue in mockery to La Stevenyne, who herself was grinning and laughing, he whispered in Ulenspiegel’s ear:
“’T is van te beven de klinkaert—it is time to rattle the glasses.” Then, in his ordinary tone of voice, and pointing at the constables:
“Gentle Reformer,” he said, “we are all on your side. Stand us some food and drink, won’t you?”
And La Stevenyne laughed with pleasure, and put out her tongue at Ulenspiegel when his back was turned. And La Gilline, she of the brocaded gown, she also put out her tongue at Ulenspiegel, and the girls all began to whisper one to another: “Behold the spy that by her beauty draweth men to the torture and bringeth them at last to a death more cruel even than torture. Above seven-and-twenty Protestants hath she betrayed already. Gilline is her name, and now she is in a rapture of joy as she thinks of the reward she will get for her information—the first hundred caroluses, to wit, from the estate of each of her victims. But she will not laugh when she bethinketh her that she must share one-half of the spoil with La Stevenyne!”
And every one there present—the constables, the butchers, and the girls themselves—put out their tongues in mockery of Ulenspiegel. And Lamme sweated great drops of sweat, and became red with anger like the crest of a cock. But he would not let himself say a word.
“Come, stand us food and drink,” said the butchers and the constables.