"
Niceros, pleased with the frankness of his friend: "Let me never
thrive," said he, "if I am not ready to caper out of my skin, to see
you in so good a humours; therefore what I say shall be all mirth;
tho' I am afraid those grave fopps may laugh: but let them look to 't,
I'll go on nevertheless; for what am I the worse for any one swearing?
I had rather they laugh at what I say, than at my self."
Thus when he spake---- ----he began this tale:--
"While I was yet a servant we liv'd in a narrow lane, now the house of
Gavilla: There, as the gods would have it, I fell in love with
Tarentius's wife; he kept an eating-house. Ye all knew Melissa
Tarentina, a pretty little punching-block, and withal beautiful; but
(so help me Hercules) I minded her not so much for the matter of the
point of that, as that she was good-humour'd; if I asked her any
thing, she never deny'd me; and what money I had, I trusted her with
it; nor did she ever fail me when I'd occasion. It so happened, that
a she-companion of hers had dy'd in the country, and she was gone
thither; how to come at her I could not tell; but a friend is seen at
a dead lift; it also happened my master was gone to Capua to dispatch
somewhat or other: I laid hold of the opportunity, and persuaded mine
host to take an evenings walk of four or five miles out of town, for
he was a stout fellow, and as bold as a devil: The moon shone as
bright as day, and about cock-crowing we fell in with a burying-place,
and certain monument of the dead: my man loitered behind me
a-star-gazing, and I sitting expecting him, fell a singing and
numbering them; when looking round me, what should I see but mine host
stript stark-naked, and his cloaths lying by the high-wayside.
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