"Ay, ay," rejoined
Belcolore, "you all make great promises, but then you never keep them.
Think you to serve me as you served Biliuzza, whom you left in the lurch
at last? God's faith, you do not so. To think that she turned woman of
the world just for that! If you have not the money with you, why, go and
get it." "Prithee," returned the priest, "send me not home just now. For,
seest thou, 'tis the very nick of time with me, and the coast is clear,
and perchance it might not be so on my return, and in short I know not
when it would be likely to go so well as now." Whereto she did but
rejoin:--"Good; if you are minded to go, get you gone; if not, stay where
you are." The priest, therefore, seeing that she was not disposed to give
him what he wanted, as he was fain, to wit, on his own terms, but was
bent upon having a quid pro quo, changed his tone; and:--"Lo, now," quoth
he, "thou doubtest I will not bring thee the money; so to set thy mind at
rest, I will leave thee this cloak--thou seest 'tis good sky-blue
silk--in pledge." So raising her head and glancing at the cloak:--"And
what may the cloak be worth?" quoth Belcolore. "Worth!" ejaculated the
priest: "I would have thee know that 'tis all Douai, not to say Trouai,
make: nay, there are some of our folk here that say 'tis Quadrouai; and
'tis not a fortnight since I bought it of Lotto, the secondhand dealer,
for seven good pounds, and then had it five good soldi under value, by
what I hear from Buglietto, who, thou knowest, is an excellent judge of
these articles." "Oh! say you so?" exclaimed Belcolore. "So help me God,
I should not have thought it; however, let me look at it." So Master
Priest, being ready for action, doffed the cloak and handed it to her.
And she, having put it in a safe place, said to him:--"Now, Sir, we will
away to the hut; there is never a soul goes there;" and so they did. And
there Master Priest, giving her many a mighty buss and straining her to
his sacred person, solaced himself with her no little while.

Which done, he hied him away in his cassock, as if he were come from
officiating at a wedding; but, when he was back in his holy quarters, he
bethought him that not all the candles that he received by way of
offering in the course of an entire year would amount to the half of five
pounds, and saw that he had made a bad bargain, and repented him that he
had left the cloak in pledge, and cast about how he might recover it
without paying anythin