infect its neighbours; so ’tis my advice that thou out with it before the matter grows worse.”  “My judgment jumps with thine,” quoth Nicostratus; “wherefore send without delay for a chirurgeon to draw it.”  “God forbid,” returned the lady, “that chirurgeon come hither for such a purpose; methinks, the case is such that I can very well dispense with him, and draw the tooth myself.  Besides which, these chirurgeons do these things in such a cruel way, that I could never endure to see thee or know thee under the hands of any of them:  wherefore my mind is quite made up to do it myself, that, at least, if thou shalt suffer too much, I may give it over at once, as a chirurgeon would not do.”  And so she caused the instruments that are used on such occasions to be brought her, and having dismissed all other attendants save Lusca from the chamber, and locked the door, made Nicostratus lie down on a table, set the pincers in his mouth, and clapped them on one of his teeth, which, while Lusca held him, so that, albeit he roared for pain, he might not move, she wrenched by main force from his jaw, and keeping it close, took from Lusca’s hand another and horribly decayed tooth, which she shewed him, suffering and half dead as he was, saying:—­“See what thou hadst in thy jaw; mark how far gone it is.”  Believing what she said, and deeming that, now the tooth was out, his breath would no more be offensive, and being somewhat eased of the pain, which had been extreme, and still remained, so that he murmured not little, by divers comforting applications, he quitted the chamber:  whereupon the lady forthwith sent the tooth to her lover, who, having now full assurance of her love, placed himself entirely at her service.  But the lady being minded to make his assurance yet more sure, and deeming each hour a thousand till she might be with him, now saw fit, for the more ready performance of the promise she had given him, to feign sickness; and Nicostratus, coming to see her one day after breakfast, attended only by Pyrrhus, she besought him for her better solacement, to help her down to the garden.  Wherefore Nicostratus on one side, and Pyrrhus on the other, took her and bore her down to the garden, and set her on a lawn at the foot of a beautiful pear-tree:  and after they had sate there a while, the lady, who had already given Pyrrhus to understand what he must do, said to him:—­“Pyrrhus, I should greatly like to have some of those pears; get thee up the tree, and shake some of them down.”  Pyrrhus climbed the tree in a trice, and began to shake down the pears, and while he did so:—­“Fie!  Sir,” quoth he, “what is this you do?  And you, Madam, have you no shame, that you suffer him to do so in my presence?  Think you that I am blind?  ’Twas but now that you were gravely indisposed.  Your cure has been speedy indeed to permit of your so behaving:  and as for such a purpose you have so many goodly chambers, why betake you not yourselves to one of them, if you must needs