“I don’t go hunting vermin in beggar fellows’ fur.”
“Sir,” replied the sniveller, “do not make the hive jump about so much; my poor arms are nearly breaking in two.”
“I’ll have them off altogether,” answered the angry fellow.
Then, putting off his leathern gear he set the hive down on the ground, and leaped upon his comrade. And they fought with each other, the one cursing and swearing, the other crying for mercy.
Ulenspiegel, hearing the blows pattering down, came out of the hive, dragged it with him as far as the nearest wood so as to find it there again, and went back to Claes’s house.
And thus it is that in quarrellings sly folk find their advantage.
XX
When he was fifteen, Ulenspiegel erected a little tent at Damme upon four stakes, and he cried out that everyone might see within, represented in a handsome frame of hay, his present and future self.
When there came a man of law, haughty and puffed up with his own importance, Ulenspiegel would thrust his head out of the frame, and mimicking the face of an old ape, he would say: