Three merry companions having met on a Saturday night at an ale-house, (a hatter a shoe-maker, and a taylor,) where they drank heartily all that night, and to-morrow until mid-day: and their beats were who had the lovingest wife: So they agreed for a trial of their good-nature, that every man should do whatever his wife bade him do, as soon as ever he went home: or who did not as she ordered him, was to pay all the reckoning, which was seven and sixpence; or if all of them did as their wives bade them, then they were to pay all alike: So on this agreement they all came away, first to the hatter's house, and in he goes like a madman, dancing and jumping round the floor, his wife at the very time was taking off the pot and setting it on the floor, he still dancing about, now says the wife ding over the pot with thy madness, so he gives it a kick and over it went, and that saved him, as he had done what his wife bade him do. Then away they go the taylor's house, and he goes dancing likewise, but his wife fell a scolding him: O says he, my dear give me a kiss? kiss my arse, you drunken rogue, said she; then to her he flies and whips her over to the bed, up with her petticoats and kisses her arse before them all, and that saved him; then away they went to the shoemaker's, and in he goes very merry, and dancing about as he saw the other two do; saying, come my dear heart and
