“And when do you play upon this gentle flute?” said the canon.

“Every evening and sometimes I stay all the night.”

“But how?” said the canon, astonished.

“This is how.  There is a room close to, a chest into which I get.  When the good husband returns from his friend the draper’s, where he goes to supper every evening, because often he helps the draper’s wife in her work, my mistress pleads a slight illness, lets him go to bed alone, and comes to doctor her malady in the room where the chest is.  On the morrow, when my jeweller is at his forge, I depart, and as the house has one exit on to the bridge, and another into the street, I always come to the door when the husband is not, on the pretext of speaking to him of his suits, which commence joyfully and heartily, and I never let them come to an end.  It is an income from cuckoldom, seeing that in the minor expenses and loyal costs of the proceedings, he spends as much as on the horses in his stable.  He loves me well, as all good cuckolds should love the man who aids them, to plant, cultivate, water and dig the natural garden of Venus, and he does nothing without me.”

Now these practices came back again to the memory of the shepherd, who was illuminated by the light issuing from his danger, and counselled by the intelligence of those measures of self-preservation, of which every animal possesses a sufficient dose to go to the end of his ball of life.  So Chiquon gained with hasty feet the Rue de la Calandre, where the jeweller should be supping with his companion, and after having knocked at the door, replied to question put to him through the little grill, that he was a messenger on state secrets, and was admitted to the draper’s house.  Now coming straight to the fact, he made the happy jeweller get up from his table, led him to a corner, and said to him:  “If one of your neighbours had planted a horn on your forehead and he was delivered to you, bound hand and foot, would you throw him into the river?”

“Rather,” said the jeweller, “but if you are mocking me I’ll give you a good drubbing.”

“There, there!” replied Chiquon, “I am one of your friends and come to warn you that as many times as you have conversed with the draper’s wife here, as often has your own wife been served the same way by the advocate Pille-grue, and if you will come back to your forge, you will find a good fire there.  On your arrival, he who looks after your you-know-what, to keep it in good order, gets into the big clothes chest.  Now make a pretence that I have bought the said chest of you, and I will be upon the bridge with a cart, waiting your orders.”

The said jeweller took his cloak and his hat, and parted company with his crony without saying a word, and ran to his hole like a poisoned rat.  He arrives and knocks, the door is opened, he runs hastily up the stairs, finds two covers laid, sees his wife coming out of the chamber of love, and then says to her, “My dear, here are two covers laid.”