Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper - Francisco de Quevedo (good summer reads .TXT) 📗

for his services. The landlord was amazed, and everybody pressing that he should give them, he ran out and brought three close-stools, saying, “There is one for each of you, would you have any more?” (For in Spanish, “services” is a polite word for a close-stool.) This had like to have spoiled all, for the soldier got up in his shirt, with his sword in his hand, and ran after the landlord, swearing he would murder him; because he made a jest of him, who had been at the battles of Lepanto, St. Quintin, and several others, and brought him close-stools instead of the papers he had given him. We all ran after to hold him, and could not, whilst the landlord cried, “Sir, you asked me for services; I was not bound to know, that in the language of soldiers, they gave that name to the certificates of their exploits.” At length we appeased them, and returned to our room. The hermit, fearing the worst, lay abed, pretending the fright had done him harm; however, he paid our reckoning, and we set out towards the mountain, very much disturbed at his behaviour towards us, and much more for that we had not been able to get his money from him.

We came up with a Genoese, I mean one of those bankers who help to drain Spain of all its money. He was going up the mountain, with a servant behind him, and an umbrella over his head, much like a rich usurer. We fell into discourse with him, and still he turned it to talk of money, for they are a people that seem born for nothing but the purse. He presently fell upon Besançon, and to argue whether it were convenient or no to put out money at Besançon. At last the soldier and I asked him what gentleman that was he talked of? He answered, smiling, “It is a town in Italy, where all the great money-dealers meet to settle the exchange and value of coin.” By which we understood that Besançon was the great exchange of usurers. He entertained us on the way, telling he was undone because a bank was broke in which he had above sixty thousand ducats; and swore by his conscience to all he said, though I am of opinion that conscience among traders is like a virtue among whores, which they sell though they have none. Scarce any trader has any conscience, for being informed that it has a sting, they leave it behind them with the navel-string when they come into the world. We held on our conversation till we spied the walls of Segovia, which was a great satisfaction to me, though the thoughts of what I had endured under the wicked Cabra, at the starving boarding school, would have given a check to my joy. When I came to the town, I spied my father waiting upon the road, which brought tears to my eyes; but I went on, being much altered since I left the place, for I began to have a beard and was well clad. I parted from my company, and considering who was most likely to know my uncle besides the gallows, I could not imagine whom to apply myself to. I went up and asked several people for Alonso Ramplón, and nobody could give me any tidings of him, everyone said he did not know him: I was very glad to find so many honest men in my town. As I stood there, I heard the common crier set up his note, and after him my good uncle playing his part. There came a file of bareheaded fellows, naked to the waist, before my uncle, and he played a tune upon all their backs, going from the one to the other. I stood gazing at this sight, with a man I had been inquiring of, and told him I was a person of high birth; when I saw my uncle draw near, and he espying me, ran to embrace me, calling me nephew. I thought I should have died for shame; I never looked back to take leave of the man I was with, but went along with my uncle, who said to me, “You may follow till I have done with these people, for we are now upon our return, and you shall dine with me today.” I, being mounted on my mule, and thinking in that gang I should be but one degree less exposed than those that were whipped, told him I would wait there, and stepped a little aside, so very much out of countenance that had not the recovery of my inheritance depended on him, I would never more have spoken to him, or been seen in that place. He concluded his exercise, came back, and carried me to his house, where I alighted, and we dined.

XI

The kind entertainment I had at my uncle’s, the visits I received; how I recovered my inheritance and returned to Madrid.

My worthy uncle was lodged near the slaughterhouse, at a water-seller’s house. We went in, and he said to me, “My lodging is not a palace, but I assure you, nephew, it stands conveniently for my business.” We went up such a pair of stairs that I longed to be at the top, to know whether there was any difference betwixt it and the ladder at the gallows. There we came into such a low room that we walked about as if we had been all full of courtesy, bowing to one another. He hung up the cat-of-nine-tails on a nail, about which there were others with halters, broad knives, axes, hooks, and other tools belonging to the trade. He asked me why I did not take off my cloak and sit down? I answered, “I did not use to do so.” I cannot express how much I was out of countenance at my uncle’s infamous profession, who