“There was an owl flying across a garden, and it sat over a well and
sipped the water.”
So the mistress went on listening, and at last interrupted: “What sort
of a tale is this? Why, it is a mere repetition.”
“Why do you interrupt me? I told you you must not make any exclamations:
this is the preface of the tale, and there comes another after it.”
Then the man, after hearing this, could not help leaping up from the
bench and whipping his wife.
“You were told not to make any interruptions, and you will not let him
end his story.”
So he set on beating, beating, whipping, slippering, basting her, until
the wife at the end hated stories, and was in despair ever afterwards at
the sound of them.