While he talked thus with himself, the sky cleared and grew bright with a strong sun, the hail ceased, and Ulenspiegel said: “Good morrow, sun, my one friend, that comest to dry me!”
But he still kept on running, being cold. Suddenly from afar he saw coming along the road a black-and-white dog running straight before him, tongue hanging out and the eyes bolting from his head.
“This brute,” said Ulenspiegel, “has the madness in his belly!” He hastily picked up a big stone and climbed upon a tree; as he reached the first bough, the dog passed and Ulenspiegel launched the stone upon his skull. The dog stopped, and wretchedly and stiffly tried to get up the tree and bite Ulenspiegel, but he could not, and fell back to die.
Ulenspiegel was nowise glad at this, and still less when, coming down from the tree, he perceived that the dog’s mouth was not dry and parched as is usual when these animals are smitten with the hydrophobia. Then studying his skin, he saw it was fine and good to sell, stripped him of it, washed it, hung it on his staff, let it dry a little in the sun, and then put it away in his satchel.
Hunger and thirst tormented him more and more, and he went into many farmhouses, not daring to offer his skin for sale, for fear that it might have belonged to one of the farmers’ dogs. He asked for bread, and was refused it. Night came on. His limbs were weary, he went into a little inn. There he beheld an ancient baesine caressing a wheezy old dog whose skin was like a dead man’s.
“Whence comest thou, traveller?” asked the aged baesine.
Ulenspiegel made answer:
“I come from Rome, where I healed the Pope’s dog of a sorry rheum that grieved him sore.”
“Then thou hast seen the Pope?” said she to him, drawing him a glass of beer.
“Alas!” said Ulenspiegel, emptying the glass, “I have but been permitted to kiss his holy foot and his holy slipper.”