Mylio—"What feast did I rob you of, Sir Paunch? Come, wake up!"
Goose-Skin—"You woke me up at the sweetest moment of my dream! And what a dream! I was witnessing the combat of Shrove-Tide against Shrove-Tuesday. Shrove-Tide, armed cap-a-pie, advanced mounted astride of a salmon. For casque he had on an enormous oyster, for buckler a cheese, for cuirass a ray, for spurs a round of sea-urchins, and for sling an eel with an egg between its teeth for a stone!"
MYLIO—"Such is the gluttony of this Sir Paunch that even asleep he dreams of eatables! Oh, you devil of a gourmand!"
Goose-Skin—"Miscreant! You snatched from my mouth dishes that cost me nothing, because, if Shrove-Tide was toothsomely armed, Shrove-Tuesday was no less so. His casque consisted of a veal patty with a roasted peacock for its top. Shrove-Tuesday, all cased in in hams, was astride of a roe whose many-branched antlers were loaded with partridges. For lance he had a long spit, run through a number of roast capons. (Addressing the trouvere with a redoubled affectation of grotesque anger) Vagabond! Man without faith or law! You woke me up at the very moment when, Shrove-Tide succumbing to the blows of Shrove-Tuesday, I was on the point of eating both the vanquished and the vanquisher! Arms and armor! Everything! I was on the point of eating everything including the mounts of the combatants! Oh, in all my life I shall not pardon you for your villainy."
Mylio—"Calm down! I shall substitute your dream with the reality. You shall not want for victuals."
Goose-Skin—"Oxhorns! A wonderful proposition! To eat with eyes open! What would there be wonderful about that! On the contrary, without you I was eating asleep! Oh, a plague upon you!"
Mylio—"But suppose I were to furnish you wherewith to guzzle a whole day and night, what would you then have to reproach me with? Just answer, comrade!"
Goose-Skin (gravely)—"You shut my mouth with the promise to fill it with good wine and plenty!"
Mylio—"Will you render me a service?"
Goose-Skin—"I'm a glutton, a boozer, a gambler, a libertine, a lover of wenches, a liar, a roysterer, a braggard, and a poltroon, but—oxhorns! I am not an ingrate. Never shall I forget that you, Mylio, the celebrated and brilliant trouvere, whose harp is the delight of the castles, have more than once shared your purse with old Goose-Skin the juggler, whose humble hurdy-gurdy cheers only taverns patronized by vagabonds, serfs and wenches! No! Never shall I forget your generosity, Mylio; and I swear to you that you always can count upon me—by the faith of Goose-Skin, which is my war name."