“He’s here!” the miser cried, “but he’ll not have his way with me.”

He hid the eel behind a cupboard.  Moving hastily,

his wife grabbed up the mattress where she shoved the pizza bread,

and the flask of wine was hidden underneath the couple’s bed.

The miser dove beneath the table.  Cloth hung to the ground

but a tiny little hole enabled him to look around.

Meanwhile the “buddy” saw all this while peering through a crack.

And when the wife had opened up the door, he cried, “I’m back!

Imagine what occurred while I was waiting in the street!

A huge enormous snake appeared and slid across my feet.

How big it was, how fat around, I find it hard to say,

but I’d swear it was as big as that fat eel you stowed away.

In my horror I picked up a stone to bash it on the head,

as hefty as the wine flask that you slipped beneath the bed,

and I flattened him as flat as that good pizza bread you hid

beneath the mattress.  Yes, I killed the snake.  That’s what I did,

but before it died the snake looked up and fixed me in a stare

exactly like your husband underneath the table there!”

“Enough!” the miser shouted as he struggled to get loose.

“Now I see quite clearly I’ve been acting like a goose.

We’ve been welcoming a “buddy” who perchance was “passing by.”

But now I see that really we’ve been harboring a spy!

We offered you a finger but, oh no, you grabbed the hand

like an avaricious army when it occupies a land.