Now all around the ship there was to be seen the most joyous sight imaginable: men all clad in velvet, sledging and skating on the ice; and women skating too, with skirts and jackets broidered with pearl and gold, blue and scarlet. And the boys and girls came and went hither and thither, laughing and following one another in line, or two by two in couples, singing the song of love upon the ice, and running to eat and drink at the stalls decorated with flags, where one could buy all kinds of brandy-wine and oranges and figs and eggs and hot vegetables with heete-koeken--pancakes, that is, with vegetables flavoured with vinegar. And all around them the sailing sledges made the ice to resound under the press of their sharp runners. Lamme, who was still searching everywhere for his wife, wandered about on his skates like the rest of that happy crowd, but he kept falling down time and again. Ulenspiegel, meanwhile, to satisfy his hunger and thirst, was wont to resort to a little tavern on the quay where the prices were not high, and where he used to have many a talk with the old lady who kept it. One Sunday about nine o'clock he went to the inn and asked them to give him some dinner. A charming-looking young woman came forward to serve him. "Dear me," he cried, "you rejuvenated hostess! Where-ever are those old wrinkles of yours gone to? And your mouth has found all its teeth again, and they are white with the whiteness of youth itself! And your lips are red like cherries! Is it for me this smile of yours so sweet and roguish?" "Nay, nay," she said. "But what can I get you?" "Yourself," he said. The woman answered: "That would be too big a meal for a lean little man like you. Will not some other kind of meat do for you?" When Ulenspiegel made no answer: "What have you done," she said, "with that handsome, well-set-up, but rather corpulent gentleman I have so often seen in your company?" "Do you mean Lamme?" queried Ulenspiegel. "Yes. What have you done with him?" she repeated. "He is busy eating," answered Ulenspiegel, "eating anything he can set his teeth upon--hard-boiled eggs from the street stalls, smoked eels and salted fish: and all this, forsooth, to help him find his wife. But why are you not she, my sweet? Would you like fifty florins? Would you like a collar of gold?" But she crossed herself, saying: "I am not to be bought, nor yet taken." "Do you love no one?" said Ulenspiegel. "I love you as my neighbour; but above all I love Our Lord and Our Lady, they that command me to live an honest life. Hard indeed and oftentimes burdensome are the duties that are laid on us poor women. Nevertheless God gives us his aid. Yet some there are who succumb to temptation. But this fat friend of yours, come, tell me, is he well and happy?" Ulenspiegel answered: "He is gay when he is eating, but sad and pensive when he is empty. I will get him to come and see you." "Do not do that," she said; "he would weep and so should I."