"Fortune?" said he; "Well then, fortune may keep you; but I want my
child. Your new master may have the cow, but I will have the calf; so
give it to me at once, for I will have it whatever may happen."

"Alas!" said the wench, "what will my man say? I shall be disgraced, for
he certainly believes the child is his."

"I don't care what he thinks," replied the other, "but he shall not have
what is mine."

"Ah, my friend, I beg and request of you to leave the merchant this
child; you will do him a great service and me also. And by God! you will
not be tempted to have the child when once you have seen him, for he is
an ugly, awkward boy, all scrofulous and mis-shapen."

"Whatever he is," replied the other, "he is mine, and I will have him."

"Don't talk so loud, for God's sake!" said the wench, "and be calm, I
beg! And if you will only leave me this child, I promise you that I will
give you the next I have."

Angry as the gentleman was, he could not help smiling at hearing these
words, so he said no more and went away, and never again demanded the
child, which was brought up by the merchant.

*****

[Illustration: 23.jpg THE LAWYER'S WIFE WHO PASSED THE LINE.]

STORY THE TWENTY-THIRD -- THE LAWYER'S WIFE WHO PASSED THE LINE. [23]

By Monseigneur De Commesuram.

_Of a clerk of whom his mistress was enamoured, and what he promised to
do and did to her if she crossed a line which the said clerk had made.
Seeing which, her little son told his father when he returned that he
must not cross the line; or said he, "the clerk will serve you as he did
mother."_

Formerly there lived in the town of Mons, in Hainault, a lawyer of a
ripe old age, who had, amongst his other clerks, a good-looking and
amiable youth, with whom the lawyer's wife fell deeply in love, for it
appeared to her that he was much better fitted to do her business than
her husband was.

She decided that she would behave in such a way that, unless he were
more stupid than an ass, he would know what she wanted of him; and, to
carry out her design, this lusty wench, who was young, fresh, and buxom,
often brought her sewing to where the clerk was, and talked to him of a
hundred thousand matters, most of them about love.

And during all this talk she did not forget to practise little tricks:
sometimes she would knock his elbow when he was writing; another time
she threw gravel and spoiled his work, so that he was forced to write it
all ove