"Which?" said she, laconically.
The farmer pointed to the Prince. The matron took a good look at him.
"Well," she said, "he is the one that should know most about us. He has been married once or twice, and hath gotten certain things burned into him. As for this one," she went on, indicating Dessauer, "he may be doctor of all the wisdoms, as ye say, but he has never compassed the mystery of a woman. And this limber young spark with the quick eyes, he is a bachelor also, but ardently desires to be otherwise. I wot he has a pretty lass waiting for him somewhere."
"How knew you that of me, goodwife ?" I cried, greatly astonished.
"Why, by the way you looked up when my daughter came dancing in. You were in your lost brown-study, and then, seeing a pretty lass that most are glad to rest their eyes upon, you looked away disappointed or careless."
"And how knew you that I was of the ancient guild of the bachelors?" asked Dessauer.
"Why, by the way that you looked at the pot on the fire, and sniffed up the stew, and asked how long the dinner would be! The bachelor of years is ever uneasy about his meals, having little else to be uneasy about, and no wife, compact of all contrary whimsies, to teach him how to be patient."
"And how," cried the Prince, in his turn, "knew you that I had been wedded once?"
"Or twice," said the woman, smiling. "Man, ye cackle it like a hen on the rafters advertising her egg in the manger below. I knew it by the fashion ye had of hanging up your hat and eke scraping your feet—-not after ye entered, like these other good, careless gentlemen, but with your knife, outside the door. I see it by your air of one that has been at once under authority and yet master of a house."
"Well done, good wife!" cried the Prince. "Were I indeed in authority I would make you either Prime-Minister or chief of my thief-catchers."