His wife hearing him say so was inflamed with the desire thereof, as women are for the most part very covetous. That matter running still in her mind, she could scant find in her heart to spare him time to go to supper, for very eagerness to animate him on to take that bargain upon him. Wherefore so soon as they had supped and given God thanks, she called her husband, saying, ‘I pray you come hither, I would speak a word with you. That man is not always to be blamed that sometimes takes counsel of his wife; though women’s wits are not able to comprehend the greatest things, yet in doubtful matters they oft help on a sudden’.

‘Well, wife, what mean you by this?’ said her husband. ‘In truth’, quoth she, ‘I would have you pluck up a man’s heart, and speedily chop up a bargain for these goods you speak of’. ‘Who, I?’ quoth he, ‘which way should I do it, that am not able for three thousand pounds to lay down three thousand pence?’ ‘Tush, man’, quoth she, ‘what of that? Every man that beholds a man in the face knows not what he hath in his purse; and whatsoever he be that owns the goods, he will no doubt be content to stay a month for his money, or three weeks at least. And I promise you, to pay a thousand pounds a week is a pretty sound payment, and I may say to you, not much to be misliked of.

‘Now, husband, I would have you in the morning go with John the Frenchman to the Grecian merchant, and with good discretion drive a sound bargain with him for the whole freight of the ship, and thereupon give him a dozen angels [i.e. gold coins] in earnest; and eight and twenty days after the delivery of the goods, condition to deliver him the rest of his money’. ‘But woman’, quoth he, ‘dost thou imagine that he will take my word for so weighty a mass of money, and to deliver his goods upon no better security?’

‘Good lord’, quoth she, ‘have you no wit in such a case to make shift? I’ll tell you what you shall do: be not known that you bargain for your own self, but tell him that you do it in the behalf of one of the chief Aldermen in the city. But beware in any case that you leave with him your own name in writing; he, being a Grecian, cannot read English. And you have no need at all to show John the Frenchman - or if you should, it were no matter, for you can tell enough that he can neither read nor write’.