Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/109

Rh of the courtiers immediately followed the dog, until they came to the tavern, where they found Cienzo; and delivering the message from the king, they conducted him to the palace, into the presence of the king, who asked him how it happened that he boasted of having killed the dragon, since the heads were brought by the man who was sitting crowned at his side. And Cienzo answered, "That fellow deserves a pasteboard mitre rather than a crown, since he has had the impudence to tell you a bouncing lie . But to prove to you that I have done the deed, and not this rascal, order the heads to be produced, for none of them can speak to the proof without a tongue, and these I have brought with me as witnesses to convince you of the truth."

So saying he pulled the tongues out of his pocket, while the countryman was struck all of a heap, not knowing what would be the end of it; and the more so when Menechella added, "This is the man! Ah you dog of a countryman, a pretty trick you have played me!" When the king heard this, he took the crown from the head of that false loon, and placed it on Cienzo's; and he was on the point of sending the fellow to the galleys, but Cienzo begged the king to have