with me, and the coast is clear, and perchance it might not be so on my return, and in short I know not when it would be likely to go so well as now.”  Whereto she did but rejoin:—­“Good; if you are minded to go, get you gone; if not, stay where you are.”  The priest, therefore, seeing that she was not disposed to give him what he wanted, as he was fain, to wit, on his own terms, but was bent upon having a quid pro quo, changed his tone; and:—­“Lo, now,” quoth he, “thou doubtest I will not bring thee the money; so to set thy mind at rest, I will leave thee this cloak—­thou seest ’tis good sky-blue silk—­in pledge.”  So raising her head and glancing at the cloak:—­“And what may the cloak be worth?” quoth Belcolore.  “Worth!” ejaculated the priest:  “I would have thee know that ’tis all Douai, not to say Trouai, make:  nay, there are some of our folk here that say ’tis Quadrouai; and ’tis not a fortnight since I bought it of Lotto, the secondhand dealer, for seven good pounds, and then had it five good soldi under value, by what I hear from Buglietto, who, thou knowest, is an excellent judge of these articles.”  “Oh! say you so?” exclaimed Belcolore.  “So help me God, I should not have thought it; however, let me look at it.”  So Master Priest, being ready for action, doffed the cloak and handed it to her.  And she, having put it in a safe place, said to him:—­“Now, Sir, we will away to the hut; there is never a soul goes there;” and so they did.  And there Master Priest, giving her many a mighty buss and straining her to his sacred person, solaced himself with her no little while.

Which done, he hied him away in his cassock, as if he were come from officiating at a wedding; but, when he was back in his holy quarters, he bethought him that not all the candles that he received by way of offering in the course of an entire year would amount to the half of five pounds, and saw that he had made a bad bargain, and repented him that he had left the cloak in pledge, and cast about how he might recover it without paying anything.  And as he did not lack cunning, he hit upon an excellent expedient, by which he compassed his end.  So on the morrow, being a saint’s day, he sent a neighbour’s lad to Monna Belcolore with a request that she would be so good as to lend him her stone mortar, for that Binguccio dal Poggio and Nuto Buglietti were to breakfast with him that morning, and he therefore wished to make a sauce.  Belcolore having sent the mortar, the priest, about breakfast time, reckoning that Bentivegna del Mazzo and Belcolore would be at their meal, called his clerk, and said to him:—­“Take the mortar back to Belcolore, and say:—­’My master thanks you very kindly, and bids you return the cloak that the lad left with you in pledge.’” The clerk took the mortar to Belcolore’s house, where, finding her at table with Bentivegna, he set the mortar down and delivered the priest’s message.  Whereto Belcolore would fain have demurred; but Bentivegna gave her a threatening glance, saying:—­“So,