“An old mug may decay, but never flourish; am I not your very mirror, good sir of the doctoral phiz?”
If he had a stout soldier for client, Ulenspiegel would hide and show in the middle of the frame, instead of his face, a dishful of meat and bread, and say:
“Battle will make hash of you; what will you give me for my prophecy, O soldier beloved of the big-mouthed sakers?”
When an old man, wearing ingloriously his hoary head, would bring Ulenspiegel his wife, a young woman, the boy, hiding himself as he had done for the soldier, and showing in the frame a little tree, on whose branches were hung knife handles, caskets, combs, inkhorns, all made of horn, would call out:
“Whence come all these fine nicknacks, Messire? Is it not from the hornbeam that groweth within the garden of old husbands? Who shall say now that cuckolds are folk useless in a commonweal?”
And Ulenspiegel would display his young face in the frame alongside the tree.
The old man, hearing him, would cough with masculine anger, but his dear wife would soothe him with her hand, and smiling, come up to Ulenspiegel.
“And my mirror,” she would say, “wilt thou show it to me?”
“Come closer,” Ulenspiegel would answer.
She would obey, and he then, kissing her wherever he could: