(21)
SEVERAL
MERRY TALES.
TALE I.
Of a Scholar and a tapſter on a winter night.
THE tapſter ſaid, Sir, will you go to bed. No, quoth the ſcholar, there are thieves abroad, aud would not willingly be taken napping. So the tapſter left him, and being gone, in came a ſpirit into the chamber, with his head urder his arm ſo that he durft not ſtir, but cried out Help! help! fire! thieves! thieves! Oh, quoth he, the devil was here, and ſpoke to me with his head under his arm; but now I will go to bed, and if he comes again, I will ſend him to the tapſter, to help him to make falſe reckonings: It being a cold night, quoth he, I will firſt put fire to toe, that is, I will warm my toes by the fire, then I'll go to bed. And ſhe did, and a great reckoning put the ſcholar out of his jeſt ſaying, that was in earneft made to large a reckoning, he being but poor Sir John of Oxford.
