ts not to lack that quality.
Can we doubt, then, that, should but the converse that we shall hold
to-day touching this matter come to be bruited among men, 'twould serve
to put a most notable check upon the tricks they play you, by doing them
to wit of the tricks, which you, in like manner, when you are so minded,
may play them? Wherefore 'tis my intention to tell you in what manner a
young girl, albeit she was but of low rank, did, on the spur of the
moment, beguile her husband to her own deliverance.

'Tis no long time since at Naples a poor man, a mason by craft, took to
wife a fair and amorous maiden--Peronella was her name--who eked out by
spinning what her husband made by his craft; and so the pair managed as
best they might on very slender means. And as chance would have it, one
of the gallants of the city, taking note of this Peronella one day, and
being mightily pleased with her, fell in love with her, and by this means
and that so prevailed that he won her to accord him her intimacy. Their
times of forgathering they concerted as follows:--to wit, that, her
husband being wont to rise betimes of a morning to go to work or seek for
work, the gallant was to be where he might see him go forth, and, the
street where she dwelt, which is called Avorio, being scarce inhabited,
was to come into the house as soon as her husband was well out of it; and
so times not a few they did. But on one of these occasions it befell
that, the good man being gone forth, and Giannello Sirignario--such was
the gallant's name--being come into the house, and being with Peronella,
after a while, back came the good man, though 'twas not his wont to
return until the day was done; and finding the door locked, he knocked,
and after knocking, he fell a saying to himself:--O God, praised be Thy
name forever; for that, albeit Thou hast ordained that I be poor, at
least Thou hast accorded me the consolation of a good and honest girl for
wife. Mark what haste she made to shut the door when I was gone forth,
that none else might enter to give her trouble.

Now Peronella knew by his knock that 'twas her husband;
wherefore:--"Alas, Giannello mine," quoth she, "I am a dead woman, for
lo, here is my husband, foul fall him! come back! What it may import, I
know not, for he is never wont to come back at this hour; perchance he
caught sight of thee as thou camest in. However, for the love of God, be
it as it may, get thee into this tun that thou seest here,