trange news. I see plainly that
I am left out in the cold. It is finished! You are the favoured one. But
let us" he added, "think what is to be done. We must show her plainly
that we know what she is."

"That's what I wish," said the other.

They thought the matter over, and arranged their plan as follows.

The next day, or soon afterwards, the two friends were in a chamber
where there were assembled their fair lady and many others. Each took
his place where he liked; the first-comer sat near the damsel, and after
some talk, he showed her the hair which she had sent to his friend.

Whatever she may have thought, she was not startled, but said she did
not know whose hair it was, but it did not belong to her.

"What?" he said. "Has it so quickly changed that it cannot be
recognised?"

"That I cannot say," she replied, "but it does not belong to me."

When he heard that, he thought it was time to play his best card, and,
as though by accident, gave her _chaperon_ (*) such a twitch that it
fell to the ground, at which she was both angry and ashamed. And all
those who were present saw that her hair was short, and had been badly
hacked.

(*) The chaperon, in the time of Charles VII, was fastened
to the shoulder by a long band which sometimes passed two or
three times round the neck, and sometimes hung down the
back.

She rose in haste, and snatched up her head-dress, and ran into another
chamber to attire herself, and he followed her. He found her angry and
ashamed, and weeping bitterly with vexation at being thus caught. He
asked her what she had to weep about, and at what game she had lost her
hair?

She did not know what to reply, she was so vexed and astonished; and he,
who was determined to carry out the arrangement he had concluded with
his friend, said to her;

"False and disloyal as you are, you have not cared that I and my
friend were deceived and dishonoured. You wished,--as you have plainly
shown--to add two more victims to your list, but, thank God, we were on
our guard. And, in order that you may see that we both know you, here is
your hair which you sent him, and which he has presented to me; and do
not believe that we are such fools as you have hitherto thought us."

Then he called his friend, who came, and the first said,

"I have given back this fair damsel her hair, an have begun to tell her
how she has accepted the love of both of us, and how by her manner of
acting she