wn on a bench. But not seeing any one astir in the house, which
looked like a sacked village, he was lost in amazement, and said to the
statue: "Tell me, comrade, does no one live in this house?" Vardiello
waited awhile; but as the statue gave no answer, he thought this surely
was a man of few words. So he said, "Friend, will you buy my cloth?
I'll sell it you cheap." And seeing that the statue still remained
dumb, he exclaimed, "Faith, then, I've found my man at last! There,
take the cloth, examine it, and give me what you will; to-morrow I'll
return for the money."

So saying Vardiello left the cloth on the spot where he had been
sitting, and the first mother's son who passed that way found the prize
and carried it off.

When Vardiello returned home without the cloth, and told his mother all
that had happened, she wellnigh swooned away, and said to him, "When
will you put that headpiece of yours in order? See now what tricks you
have played me--only think! But I am myself to blame, for being too
tender-hearted, instead of having given you a good beating at first;
and now I perceive that a pitiful doctor only makes the wound
incurable. But you'll go on with your pranks until at last we come to a
serious falling-out, and then there will be a long reckoning, my lad!"

"Softly, mother," replied Vardiello, "matters are not so bad as they
seem; do you want more than crown-pieces brand new from the mint? Do
you think me a fool, and that I don't know what I am about? To-morrow
is not yet here. Wait awhile, and you shall see whether I know how to
fit a handle to a shovel."

The next morning, as soon as the shades of Night, pursued by the
constables of the Sun, had fled the country, Vardiello repaired to the
courtyard where the statue stood, and said, "Good-day, friend! Can you
give me those few pence you owe me? Come, quick, pay me for the cloth!"
But when he saw that the statue remained speechless, he took up a stone
and hurled it at its breast with such force that it burst a vein, which
proved, indeed, the cure to his own malady; for some pieces of the
statue falling off, he discovered a pot full of golden crown-pieces.
Then taking it in both his hands, off he ran home, head over heels, as
far as he could scamper, crying out, "Mother, mother! see here! what a
lot of red lupins I've got. How many! how many!"

His mother, seeing the crown-pieces, and knowing very well that
Vardiello would soon make the matter public, told