After dinner that night, the monk draws the merchant aside and asks him for a loan of one hundred francs to purchase cattle. The merchant gladly gives Sir John the money. The next day, the merchant leaves for Bruges. Soon after, the monk arrives at the merchant’s home, and in, exchange for the money, the wife agrees to spend the night in bed with the monk.
Sometime later, the merchant stops by the monk’s abbey to pay a social call. The monk volunteers the information that he has repaid the one hundred francs to the merchant’s wife only a day or two after he had borrowed it. When the merchant returns home, he chides his wife for not telling him that the loan was repaid. She explains that she used the money to buy fine clothes and promises to repay him — not with money, but in bed. Seeing no point in scolding her further, the merchant concludes, “Well, I forgive you what you spent / But don’t be so extravagant again.” (“Now Wyf,” he sayde, “and I foryeve it thee; / But, by thy lyfe, ne be namoore so large.”)
