row,
not for people of condition but for the lower sort. Some women always
attach themselves to the worst, and we shall find among the cutlers,
and bead-makers, and comb-sellers, the root of your anger, which we
have not discovered among the cavaliers."

This reasoning took the fancy of the King, and he ordered a second
banquet to be prepared, to which, on proclamation being made, came all
the riff-raff and rag-tag and bob-tail of the city, such as rogues,
scavengers, tinkers, pedlars, sweeps, beggars, and such like rabble,
who were all in high glee; and, taking their seats like noblemen at a
great long table, they began to feast and gobble away.

Now, when Ceccarella heard this proclamation, she began to urge
Peruonto to go there too, until at last she got him to set out for the
feast. And scarcely had he arrived there when Vastolla cried out
without thinking, "That is my Knight of the Faggot." When the King
heard this he tore his beard, seeing that the bean of the cake, the
prize in the lottery, had fallen to an ugly lout, the very sight of
whom he could not endure, with a shaggy head, owl's eyes, a parrot's
nose, a deer's mouth, and legs bare and bandy. Then, heaving a deep
sigh, he said, "What can that jade of a daughter of mine have seen to
make her take a fancy to this ogre, or strike up a dance with this
hairy-foot? Ah, vile, false creature, who has cast so base a spell on
her? But why do we wait? Let her suffer the punishment she deserves;
let her undergo the penalty that shall be decreed by you, and take her
from my presence, for I cannot bear to look longer upon her."

Then the Councillors consulted together and they resolved that she, as
well as the evil-doer, should be shut up in a cask and thrown into the
sea; so that without staining the King's hands with the blood of one of
his family, they should carry out the sentence. No sooner was the
judgment pronounced, than the cask was brought and both were put into
it; but before they coopered it up, some of Vastolla's ladies, crying
and sobbing as if their hearts would break, put into it a basket of
raisins and dried figs that she might have wherewithal to live on for a
little while. And when the cask was closed up, it was flung into the
sea, on which it went floating as the wind drove it.

Meanwhile Vastolla, weeping till her eyes ran like two rivers, said to
Peruonto, "What a sad misfortune is this of ours! Oh, if I but knew who
has played me this trick, t