After the vocabulary, which covers nearly five pages, comes the courtesy book in English and French, occupying the next seven pages. It is a reprint of the Lytylle Chyldrenes Lytil Boke,[126] which contains a set of maxims for discreet behaviour at meals, in which children are told not to snatch meat from the table before grace is said; not to throw bones on the floor; nor pick their teeth with their knife; nor do many other things, which, when we remember that such books were intended for the instruction of the gentry, throw interesting sidelights on contemporary manners. The inclusion of such precepts for children in a text-book for teaching French was not without precedent; in the last of the series of riming vocabularies, Femina (1415), there is a collection of moral maxims taken, in this instance, from the ancient writers, and printed in Latin, French, and English.
In conclusion, the author reverts to the more strictly commercial side of the treatise, with two letters, given in both French and English. One is from an apprentice who writes to his master reporting on some business he is transacting at Paris, and asking for more money. In the second a merchant communicates to his 'gossip' the news of the arrival at London and Southampton of ships laden with rich merchandise, and proposes that they should "find means and ways in this that their shops shall be well stuffed of all manner of merchandise." In both these letters the English comes first:
A prentyse wryteth to his mayster, fyrste in Englysshe and after in frensshe.[127]
Ryght worshypful syr, I recommaunde me unto you as moche as I may, and please you wete that I am in ryght goode helth thanked be God. To whome I praye that so it may be of you and of all your good frendes. As for the mater for the whiche ye sent me to Parys, I have spoken with kynges advocate the which sayd to me I must go to the kynge and enfourme his royalle majeste thereof, and have specyal commaundement. Therfore consyderynge the tyme I have taryed at Parys in the pursute of this and the grete coste and expence done bycause of this. Please you for to knowe that for to pursue that mater unto the kyng, the which is at Monthason next Tours, and for to go thyder it is nedefull to sende me some monye and with the grace of God I shalle do suche dylygence that I shall gete your hertes desyre. No more wryte I to you at this tyme but God have you in hys protectyon. Wryten hastely the XIX daye of this moneth.
Tres honnoré sire, ie me recommande a vous tant comme je puis, et plaise vous savoir que ie suis en tres bonne santé la marcy Dieu au quel ie prie que ainsi soit il de vous et de tous vos bons amys. Quant pour la matiere pour la quelle vous me envoiastes a Parys, g'ay parlé avec l'advocat du roy le quel m'a dit quil me fault aller au roy et advertir sa royalle maiesté de ce et ay un specyal commandement. Pource consyderant le temps que j'ay attendu a Paris en cest poursuite et lez granz costz et despens faitz par cause de ce. Plaise vous savoir que pour poursuir ceste matiere au roy, le qyel est a Monthason pres Tours, et pour aller la il est mestier de m'enuoyer de l'argent. Et avecques la grace de Dieu je feray telle diligence que aurez ce que vostre cueur desire. Aultre chos ne vous escripz a ceste foiz mays que Dieu vous ayt en sa protection. Escript hastivement le dixneufieme jour du moys.
And so ends this interesting little book.[128] The texts of the two complete editions are in the main identical. The arrangement of the matter on the pages is different, and the spelling of the words, both French and English, varies considerably. Slips which occur in Pynson's text, such as the rendering of 'neuf' by 'ten,' or the accidental omission of a word in the French version, are sometimes corrected in Wynkyn's version. On the other hand, similar mistakes, though much fewer in number, are found in Wynkyn's edition and not in Pynson's; while yet others are common to both the printers. Dialect forms are scattered through the two editions with equal capriciousness. Both texts contain a few anglo-normanisms. Pynson's shows numerous characteristics of the North-Eastern dialects, Picard or Lorrain, but at times there is a Picard form in Wynkyn's version, where the pure French form occurs in the other. Apart from such variations, the wording of the two editions is usually similar. In cases where it differs, the improvements are found in Wynkyn's edition, in spite of the fact that, as a general rule, the output of Pynson's press reaches a higher literary level than that of the more business-like Alsatian. This exception may, no doubt, be explained by the fact that Pynson was the first to print the Good Book to learn to speak French.[129] Yet here again mistakes are sometimes common to both texts, as, for instance, the rendering of the lines:
For the clerks that the seven arts can
Sythen that courtesy from heaven came,
by the French:
Pour les clers qui les sept arts savent
Puisque courtoisie de paradis vint,
in which the wrong interpretation of the English 'for' (conjunction) and 'sythen' (taken as meaning 'since,' not 'say') destroys the sense.