way. The next day, having put on a clean white jacket, he takes on his
back the two precious hatchets and comes to Chinon, the famous city, noble
city, ancient city, yea, the first city in the world, according to the
judgment and assertion of the most learned Massorets. At Chinon he turned
his silver hatchet into fine testons, crown-pieces, and other white cash;
his golden hatchet into fine angels, curious ducats, substantial ridders,
spankers, and rose-nobles; then with them purchases a good number of farms,
barns, houses, out-houses, thatched houses, stables, meadows, orchards,
fields, vineyards, woods, arable lands, pastures, ponds, mills, gardens,
nurseries, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, swine, hogs, asses, horses, hens,
cocks, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, ducks, drakes, and a world of all
other necessaries, and in a short time became the richest man in the
country, nay, even richer than that limping scrape-good Maulevrier. His
brother bumpkins, and the other yeomen and country-puts thereabouts,
perceiving his good fortune, were not a little amazed, insomuch that their
former pity of poor Tom was soon changed into an envy of his so great and
unexpected rise; and as they could not for their souls devise how this came
about, they made it their business to pry up and down, and lay their heads
together, to inquire, seek, and inform themselves by what means, in what
place, on what day, what hour, how, why, and wherefore, he had come by this
great treasure.

At last, hearing it was by losing his hatchet, Ha, ha! said they, was there
no more to do but to lose a hatchet to make us rich? Mum for that; 'tis as
easy as pissing a bed, and will cost but little. Are then at this time the
revolutions of the heavens, the constellations of the firmament, and
aspects of the planets such, that whosoever shall lose a hatchet shall
immediately grow rich? Ha, ha, ha! by Jove, you shall e'en be lost, an't
please you, my dear hatchet. With this they all fairly lost their hatchets
out of hand. The devil of one that had a hatchet left; he was not his