She served him all he had asked for. He ate and drank his fill, and he would even have embraced the old woman for gratitude of his jaw, had it not been for what he had said to her.
While he was eating, the old dog put his paws on his knee to have a bone. Ulenspiegel gave him several; then he said to his hostess:
“If a man had eaten in your inn and not paid, what would you do?”
“I would have his best garment off that robber,” answered the old woman.
“’Tis well,” replied Ulenspiegel; then he took the dog under his arm and went into the stable. There he shut him up along with a bone, took the dead dog’s skin out of his satchel, and coming back to the old woman, he asked her if she had said she would have his best garment off the man who would refuse to pay for his meal.
“Well, then, your dog dined with me and did not pay: so I have, following your own rede, taken his best and his only coat.”
And he showed her the skin of the dead dog.
“Ah!” said the old woman, weeping, “it is cruel of thee, master doctor. Poor old dog! he was my child to me, a poor widow. Why didst thou take from me the only friend I had in the world? I have no more now to do but to die.”
“I will bring him to life again,” said Ulenspiegel.
“Bring him to life!” said she. “And he will fawn on me again, and he will look at me again, and he will lick me again, and he will wag his poor old stump of a tail again when he looks at me! Do this, master doctor, and thou shalt have dined here gratis, a most costly dinner, and I shall give thee a florin still over and above the bargain.”