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

and nobody knows how; and that you have, since you came to town, sometimes appeared like a scholar, sometimes a sharper, and sometimes like a gentleman. All this comes of keeping company; for, my son, ‘tell me where you herd, and I’ll tell you what you are’; and ‘birds of a feather flock together’; and ‘many a good bit is lost between the lip and the dish.’ Go, you fool; if you had a hankering after women, did not you know that I had always a good stock of that commodity by me, and that I live by that trade? I breed them up to hand, and fit them for that business, and then I have them ready at my beck. What occasion have you to be drawn away by one scoundrel today, and by another rascal tomorrow; picking up a dirty drab here, and a pickled jade there, who fleece you to keep another? I vow and swear you had saved many a crown if you had applied yourself to me, for I am not over fond of money. By my father’s soul, and as I hope for mercy, I would not have asked you now for what is due for lodging, but that I want it for some private uses, and to buy some little candles and herbs.” She had her gallipots, though she was neither surgeon or apothecary, and if anybody greased her she anointed herself, and flew out with the smoke.20

I perceived that all her discourse and long speech ended in a dun; for though that was her text, she did not begin with it as others do, but made it her conclusion; when I found that I was not at all to seek for the occasion of her loving visit, which was the first she made me whilst I lodged in her house, excepting only one day, when she came to answer for herself, because she heard I had been told some story about her witchcraft, and that when the officers came to seize her, she had cast such a mist before their eyes, that they could neither find the house nor the street. She came then to tell me it was all a mistake, for they meant another of her name; and no wonder, for there were more of the name and profession. I paid her down the money, and as I was telling it out, ill fortune, which always attends me, and the devil, who never forgets to plague me, so ordered it, that the officers came to seize her for a scandalous liver, and had information that her gallant was in the house. They came directly into my room, and seeing me in bed and her by me, they laid hold of us both, gave me half a score good blows, and dragged me out of bed. Two others held her fast, saluting her with the titles of bawd and witch. Who would have thought it of a woman that lived as I have said? The noise the constables made, and my cries, gave the alarm to her gallant, who was a fruiterer, and lay in the next room within. He set off a-running. They observing it, and being informed by another lodger in the house that I was not the man, scoured after, and laid hold of him, leaving me well beaten and my hair torn off; yet for all I had endured, I could not forbear laughing to hear how the dogs complimented the old woman. One cried, “How gracefully you will look in a cart, mother; by my troth, it will be a great satisfaction to me to see a thousand or two of rotten oranges and turnip tops fly after you.” Another said, “We have taken care that you shall make a good show, and be well attended.” At last they caught her bully, bound them both, begged my pardon, and left me to myself.

It was some comfort to me to see my good landlady in the way to preferment, so that all my care was to be in a readiness that I might throw one rotten orange at her; though considering what a maid of hers, who was left behind, told me, I much doubted whether ever they could secure her in prison, for she talked of flying, and some other matters I did not at all like. I lay eight days in the house under the surgeon’s hands, and was scarce able to go abroad at the end of them, for they were fain to stitch up my face, and I could not go without crutches. By this time my money was spent, for the hundred reals all went in lodging, diet, and cure; so that to avoid further expenses, when my treasure was gone, I resolved to go abroad upon crutches, and sell my linen and clothes, which were very good. I did so and with part of the money bought an old leather jerkin, a canvas waistcoat, a patched beggar’s great coat down to my ankles, spatter-dashes on my legs, and great clouted shoes, the hood of the great coat on my head, a large brass crucifix about my neck, and a pair of beads in my hand. A mumper, who was a master at his trade, taught me the doleful tone and proper phrases for begging, so I began immediately to practise it about the streets. Sixty reals I had left I sewed up in my doublet, and so set up for a beggar, much confiding in my cant. I went about the streets for a whole week, howling in a dismal tone, and repeating my lesson after this manner: “Good Christian servants of the Lord, take pity on a poor distressed, miserable, wounded, and maimed creature, that has no comfort of his life.” This was my working day note, but on Sundays and holidays I altered my voice, and said, “Good charitable people, for the exalted Princess, Queen of