He goes off, and escapes very quickly, as well as he can, with the sheets. The others are out-doing each other, one beating, the other stabbing, the other pulling about (the image). At last they go in-doors, quite out of breath. All are pleased, and proud that they have their lad at last down there.
The mayor goes to bed, and his wife says to him:
“Now, at least, you will remain here without any more of this going and coming down there, and making me all cold.”
“I have not been going and coming. I!”
“Yes, yes; you were certainly here just now, you too.”
He gets into bed, and he keeps turning and moving about, not being able to find the sheets. At last, getting impatient, he lights the candle, and he sees that the sheets are not there. Judge of their anger; they did not know what to do. The wife said to him:
“You had better leave that man alone, or some misfortune will happen to us.”
He will not listen to anything, and goes off. He sends to fetch him as soon as daylight comes. They find his mother, and ask her where her son is. She answers:
“He has gone to sell some sheets.”
They say to her, “You will send him to the mayor’s when he comes home.” And this poor woman is again in great trouble, for at last (she thinks) they will make an end of her son. She sends him again to the mayor’s, who says to him: