“He will get angry,” said they, mocking; “he will get angry, the good man. Laugh rather, and sing us a love lay.”
“I will sing one of blows, if you wish, but let me alone.”
“Whom do you love here?”
“Nobody, neither you nor the others. I will complain to the magistrates and he will have you whipped.”
“Oh, indeed!” they said. “Whipped! And suppose we were to kiss you by main force before this whipping?”
“Me?” said Lamme.
“You,” said they all.
And thereupon the lovely and the ugly, the fresh and the faded, the brown and the fair all rushed upon Lamme, flung his bonnet into the air, and his cloak, too, and fell to caressing him, kissing him on the cheek, the nose, the back, with all their might.
The baesine laughed between her candles.
“Help!” cried Lamme; “help, Ulenspiegel; sweep away all this rubbish. Let me go. I want none of your kisses; I am married, God’s blood! and keep all for my wife.”