The next day, when Giliola went according to her wont to draw water at the well, she found there Messer Simplicio, who was waiting for her with ardent longing, and greeted him with her accustomed ‘Good morning, Signor.’ To this the gallant answered ‘Ticco,’ and she followed suit with ‘Tacco.’ Then he added, ‘When shall I come?’ to which she replied, ‘This evening.’ ‘Let it be so then,’ he said. And when Giliola returned to her house she said to her husband, ‘I have done everything as you directed.’ ‘What did he answer?’ said Ghirotto. ‘He said he would come this evening,’ his wife replied. Now Ghirotto, who by this time had got a bellyful of something else besides vermicelli and maccaroni, spake thus to his wife: ‘Giliola, let us go now and measure a dozen sacks of oats, for I will make believe that I am going to the mill, and when Messer Simplicio shall come, you must make him welcome and give him honourable reception. But before this, have ready an empty sack beside those which will be full of oats, and as soon as you hear me come into the house make him hide himself in the sack thus prepared, and leave the rest to me.’ ‘But,’ said Giliola, ‘we have not in the house enough sacks to carry out the plan you propose.’ ‘Then send our neighbour Cia,’ said the husband, ‘to Messer Simplicio to beg him to lend us two, and she can also let it be known that I have business at the mill this evening.’ And all these directions were diligently carried out. Messer Simplicio, who had given good heed to Giliola’s words, and had marked, moreover, that she had sent to borrow two of his sacks, believed of a truth that the husband would be going to the mill in the evening, and found himself at the highest pitch of felicity and the happiest man in the world, fancying the while that Giliola was as hotly inflamed with love for him as he was for her; but the poor wight had no inkling of the conspiracy which was being hatched for his undoing, otherwise he would assuredly have gone to work with greater caution than he used.