Jeppe.  Take off your cap, I say, you cobbler!

Jacob.  What’s happened to you on the way to make you so lofty?

Jeppe.  I would have you know that I’ve been hanged since I saw you last.

Jacob.  There’s nothing so splendid about that.  I don’t grudge you your luck.  But listen, Jeppe:  where you drink your liquor, there you pour out the dregs; you have gone and got full somewhere else, and now you come here to do your brawling.

Jeppe.  Quick, take off your cap, scoundrel!  Don’t you hear what jingles in my pocket?

Jacob (his cap under his arm).  Heavens, man, where did you get the money?

Jeppe.  From my barony, Jacob.  I will tell you all that’s happened to me; but get me a glass of mead, for I’m much too high and mighty to drink Danish brandy.

Jacob.  Your health, Jeppe!

Jeppe.  Now I shall tell you all that’s happened to me:  When I left you, I fell asleep.  When I woke up, I was a baron, and got drunk all over again on pork-wine.  I woke up on a dungheap and went to sleep again, hoping to sleep myself back to my baron’s estate.  I found it doesn’t always work, for my wife woke me up again with Master Eric and pulled me home by the hair, not showing the least respect for the kind of man I had been.  When I got back to my room, I was thrown out again by the neck, and found myself in the midst of a lot of constables, who sentenced me to death and killed me with poison.  When I was dead, I was hanged; and when I was hanged, I came to life again; and when I came to life again, I got four rix-dollars.  That is my story, but as to how it happened, I leave that to you to think out.

Jacob.  Ha, ha, ha!  It’s all a dream, Jeppe!

Jeppe.  If it weren’t for my four rix-dollars here, I might think it was a dream, too.  Give me another, Jacob!  I shan’t think about all that rubbish any more, but get myself decently drunk.

Jacob.  Your health, my lord baron!  Ha, ha, ha!

Jeppe.  Perhaps you can’t grasp it, Jacob?

Jacob.  No, not if I stood on my head.

Jeppe.  It can be true for all that, Jacob!  For you’re a dunce, and there are simpler things than this that you can’t understand.

SCENE 5

[Enter Magnus.]

Magnus.  Ha, ha, ha!  I’ll tell you the damn’dest tale, about a man called Jeppe of the Hill, who was found lying on the ground dead drunk:  they changed his clothes and put him in the best bed up at the baron’s castle, made him believe that he was the baron when he woke up, got him full, and laid him in his own dirty clothes back on the dungheap again, and when he came to, he thought he had been in paradise.  I nearly laughed myself to death when I heard the story from the bailiff’s men.  By the Lord, I’d give a rix-dollar to see the fool!  Ha, ha, ha!