First Merchant

I offer this great price: a thousand crowns For an old woman who was always ugly.

(An old PEASANT WOMAN comes forward, and he takes up a book and reads:)

There is but little set down here against her. "She has stolen eggs and fowl when times were bad, But when the times grew better has confessed it; She never missed her chapel of a Sunday And when she could, paid dues." Take up your money.