fresh misfortune, Silly Catharine prepared her soup
for supper, and then, having finished her work, she sat down in the
front porch and began to knit, feeling as if at last all her troubles
were over. Presently the gate was opened, and a man entered the garden.
It was he who was appointed to gather the tax, and knowing Wise Peter to
be well off, it was to his house that he first came.

"Oh, you are very much mistaken if you think I will pay your outrageous
tax!" cried Silly Catharine. "No, no! Wise Peter would know better than
that, and his wife will not be behind hand! He told me before he went
that he had no money to pay, and if he had, he wouldn't give it to
support your lazy nobles; so be off with you!"

While Catharine had been making this tirade, the tax gatherer, to whom
she had unwittingly given a valuable hint, hit upon a new plan by which
to secure his guilders. So as she paused, out of breath, he exclaimed,
in a contemptuous tone: "There is no use in making such a noise, good
woman; I see plainly that I was a fool to suppose the owner of this
beggarly house was worth five hundred guilders. Five kreutzers would be
much nearer the mark!"

"What! do you dare to call the house of Wise Peter beggarly!" cried
Catharine in a rage; "beggarly, indeed! you could never get such a fine
one if you live a thousand years."

"And I repeat that it is a beggarly house," said the other; "with a
poor, miserable family in it."

"You don't believe me?" screamed Silly Catharine; "well, then I'll show
you what you call poor; a pretty thing, indeed, that you should say we
are a beggarly family!" And, bouncing from her seat, she led the tax
gatherer to the store room, and dragging the money bags from their
concealment, she opened them triumphantly, saying, "There, what do you
call _that_?"

"At least a thousand guilders!" exclaimed the tax gatherer, astonished
at seeing so much more than he had expected. "So, you refuse to pay the
tax when you have all this money in the house! I confiscate it all in
the name of the king, and you may think yourself lucky if you and your
precious husband (who must be wise, since he married such a wife as
you), don't get thrown into prison besides." So saying, he snatched up
the bags of guilders, while Catharine stood staring at him in mute
horror, and in an instant was out of the house, and gone on his way.

Nearly stunned with this new mishap, Catharine burst into tears, and ran
down stairs cry