Scarpafico, when he heard this tale, said to the fellow, ‘Two other men I have met told me the same story, and I did not believe them, but now it appears certain that the beast is an ass,’ and having dismounted from the mule, he handed it over to the thief, who, having thanked the priest for it, went off to join his companions, leaving good Pre Scarpafico to make his way home on foot. As soon as he came to his house he told Nina how he had bought a nag at the market, thinking it to be a mule, but that it had proved to be an ass; and how, having been told that he had mistaken one beast for the other by several people he had met on the road home, he had given the beast to the last of them. ‘Ah, you poor simpleton!’ cried Nina. ‘Cannot you see they have played you a trick? I thought you were cleverer than this. In truth, they would not have fooled me thus.’ ‘Well, it is no use to grieve over it,’ said Scarpafico. ‘They may have played me a trick, but see if I do not play them two in return. Be sure that these fellows, after having once fooled me, will not rest content with that, but will soon be weaving some new plot whereby they may plunder me afresh.’ Not far from Pre Scarpafico’s house there lived a peasant, who had amongst his goats two which were so much alike that it was impossible to tell one from the other. These two goats the priest bought, and the next day ordered Nina to prepare a good dinner for himself and some friends he proposed to invite—some boiled veal, and roast fowls and meat, and to make savoury sauces thereto, and a tart of the sort she was accustomed to serve him with. Then he took one of the goats and tied it to a hedge in the garden, and having given it some fodder, he put a halter round the neck of the other and led it off to the market, where he was at once accosted by the three worthies of the late escapade. ‘Welcome, good sir, and what may be your business here to-day? You are come, no doubt, to make another good purchase?’ To which Scarpafico replied, ‘I have come to buy divers provisions, for some friends are coming to dine with me; and if you will consent to join our feast it will please me greatly.’ The cunning rascals willingly accepted Scarpafico’s invitation, and he, when he had bought everything he required, bestowed all his purchases on the back of the goat, and said to the beast, ‘Now go home and tell Nina to boil this veal, and to roast the fowls and the meat, and tell her, moreover, to make savoury sauce with these spices, and a fair tart. Do you understand? Now go in peace.’ And with these words he drove off the laden goat, which, being left to go where it would, wandered away, and what befell it no one knows. Scarpafico and his companions and some other friends of his strolled about the market-place till the hour of dinner, and then they all repaired to the priest’s house, where the first thing they saw on entering the garden was the goat which