tly dirty,
ill-mannered whore that you are! Am I to be rewarded after all I have
done for you, by being permitted to blow up your backside!"

So the cure went off in a huff, and the bride took her seat that she
might hear the holy Mass, which the good cure was about to read.

And thus, in the manner which you have just heard, did the cure lose his
chance of enjoying the girl, by his own fault and no other's, because he
spoke too loudly to her the day when he confessed her, for her husband
prevented him, in the way described above, by making his wife believe
that the act of 'riding' was called 'to blow up the backside'.

*****

STORY THE FORTY-FIFTH -- THE SCOTSMAN TURNED WASHERWOMAN

By Monseigneur De La Roche.

_Of a young Scotsman who was disguised as a woman for the space of
fourteen years, and by that means slept with many girls and married
women, but was punished in the end, as you will hear._

None of the preceding stories have related any incidents which happened
in Italy, but only those which occurred in France, Germany, England,
Flanders, and Brabant,--therefore I will relate, as something new, an
incident which formerly happened in Rome, and was as follows.

At Rome was a Scotsman of the age of about 22, who for the space of
fourteen years had disguised himself as a woman, without it being
publicly known all that time that he was a man. He called himself
Margaret, and there was hardly a good house in Rome where he was
not known, and he was specially welcomed by all the women, such as
waiting-women, and wenches of the lower orders, and also many of the
greatest ladies in Rome.

This worthy Scotsman carried on the trade of laundress, and had learned
to bleach sheets, and called himself the washerwoman, and under that
pretence frequented, as has been said, all the best houses in Rome, for
there was no woman who could bleach sheets as he did.

But you must know that he did much else beside, for when he found
himself with some pretty girl, he showed her that he was a man. Often,
in order to prepare the lye, he stopped one or two nights in the
aforesaid houses, and they made him sleep with the maid, or sometimes
with the daughter; and very often, if her husband were not there, the
mistress would have his company. And God knows that he had a good time,
and, thanks to the way he employed his body, was welcome everywhere, and
many wenches and waiting maids would fight as to who was to have him for