“On what grounds?” said she. “He lost the wager.”
“Oh, yes, we know that well enough: he has no right to them,—indeed he does not ask for them on that account, but he has well deserved them for another reason.”
“Never mind about that,” said Madame. “I will willingly give the material out of love for you, mesdames, who have so warmly pleaded for him, if you will undertake to do the sewing.”
“Yes, truly, Madame.”
Like one who when he wakes in the morning has but to give himself a shake and he is ready, Monsieur needed but a bunch of twigs to beat his clothes and he was ready, and so he went to Mass; and Madame and her women followed him, laughing loudly at him I can assure you.
And you may imagine that during the Mass there was more than one giggle when they remembered that Monsieur, whilst he was in the chest (though he did not know it himself) had been registered in the book which has no name. (*) And unless by chance this book falls into his hands, he will never,—please God—know of his misfortune, which on no account would I have him know. So I beg of any reader who may know him, to take care not to show it to him.
(*) The Book of Cuckolds.
