My friend walked very upright, now and then looking down to his feet, and took out a few crumbs of bread, which he carried for that purpose in a little box; these he strewed about his beard and clothes, so that he looked as if he had dined. I coughed and hawked to conceal my weakness, wiping my whiskers, muffled up with my cloak upon the left shoulder, playing with my tens, for I had but ten beads upon my string. All that saw me believed I had dined, and had they thought creatures were then dining upon me they had guessed right. All my confidence was in my crowns I had sunk, though it smote my conscience that it was against the rules of our profession to pay for a dinner, being obliged to feed upon the public; but I was resolved to break the fast and transgress the ordinances. By this time I was come to the corner of the street of San Luis, where a pastry-cook lived. On the counter lay a curious mutton pie, delicately baked, and piping hot out of the oven; my nose stumbled at it, and I made a full set like a dog at a partridge, fixing my eyes and gazing so steadfastly that it shrunk up as if it had been blasted. It had been pleasant enough to know how many ways I cast about to steal it, and then again I resolved to buy it. By this time it struck one, which put such a damp upon me, that I resolved to roll into the next cook’s shop. As I was steering towards one, it pleased God that I met with a friend of mine, called the licentiate Flechilla, who came swinging his cassock down the street, his face all flushed and his long robes full of daglocks. As soon as he spied me, he ran to embrace me, and yet I wonder he should know me in that condition. I returned his embrace. He asked how I did? and I answered, “I have plenty of stories to tell you, Mr. Licentiate; all that troubles me is, that I must be gone to-night.” “I am sorry for that,” quoth he, “and were it not late, and that I am going in haste to dinner, I would stay with you; but a sister I have that is married, and her husband expects me.” “Is Mistress Anne here?” said I. “So then I’ll leave all, and go and wait upon her; that is a duty I cannot dispense with.” Hearing him say he had not yet dined, made me sharp; away I went with him, and by the way told him, that a wench he had been very fond of at Alcalá was then in town, and I could get him admittance into her house. He was mightily pleased at this motion, for I purposely contrived to talk of such things as might be pleasing to him. This discourse held us till we came to his sister’s house; in we went; I made very great tenders of service to both husband and wife, and they believing that I had come on invitation, coming as I did at that hour of the day, began to excuse themselves, saying, they would have made some provision had they thought of such a guest. I laid hold of the opportunity, and invited myself, telling them I was no stranger but an old friend, and should take it unkindly to be treated with ceremony. They sat down, I did so too; and the better to stop the other’s mouth, who had not invited me, nor ever thought of any such thing, every now and then I gave him a remembrance of the wench, saying, she had asked for him, and was infinitely fond of him, with many more lies to that purpose, which made him bear the more patiently with my cramming, for such havoc as I made in the first course was never seen. The boiled meat was served up; I tumbled the best part of it down my throat in a moment, without nicety, but in such a hurry as if I had not thought it safe enough betwixt my teeth. As I hope for mercy, I laid about me at such a rate, as if my life depended on it, and things vanished in my presence as quickly as corpses are said to disappear in the old burying ground of Valladolid. No doubt but they observed how I poured down the soup, how soon I drained the dish, how clean I picked the bones, and how cleverly I despatched the meat, and to say the truth, at every turn I clapped a good hunch of bread into my pocket till it could hold no more.
When the cloth was removed, the licentiate and I stepped aside to talk about our going to the aforesaid wench’s house, which I represented to him as a very easy matter; but as we were talking at the window, I pretended somebody had called to me from the street, and answered, “Sir, I come this moment;” asked leave of my friend, promising to return immediately. I left him waiting for me, and so he might have done to this day, for I slipped away, and my belly being full had no more occasion for him. I met him several times after, and excused myself, telling a thousand lies, which are not to our purpose. Rambling thence about the streets at random, I came to the Guadalajara gate, and sat down on one of the benches that are at the mercers’ door. As God would have it, there came two of those creatures that raise money upon their handsome faces to the shop; they were both close veiled, with only one eye bare to see their way, and attended by an old woman and a little page boy. They asked for some very rich new fashion embroidered velvet. To commence a discourse, I began to play and pun upon the velvet, turning and winding, till I brought it to all the waggish lewd meanings I had a mind to. I perceived my freedom had put them in hopes they might carry off some present from the shop; and knowing I could be no loser, I offered them whatsoever they pleased. They stood out a little, pretending they did not use to accept of any thing from persons they were not acquainted with. I laid hold of that opportunity, telling them that I owned it was a presumption in me to offer them any thing there, but that I desired them to accept of a parcel of rich silks sent me from Milan, which that page of mine should carry them at night, pointing to one that stood over the way bareheaded, waiting for his master, who was in a shop. And that they might take me for some man of quality, and well known, I pulled off my hat to all the judges, privy-counsellors and gentry that went by, bowing as if we had been very well acquainted, though I knew none of them. These outward shows, and my taking a piece of gold of my hidden treasure, on pretence of giving an alms to a poor body that begged of me, made them conclude I was some gentleman of note. They made as if to go home because it grew late, and took their leave, charging me to be sure the page should go as privately as might be. I begged of them, but as a favour and token of their good will, a pair of beads, all set and linked in gold, which the handsomest of them had in her hand, as a pledge for me to visit them the next day without fail. They made some difficulty to part with it, till I offered them a hundred crowns in pawn for it, which they refused, hoping by that means to draw me in for a better penny, asked where I lodged, and told me their quarters, desiring me to observe that they could not receive messages at all times, because they were persons of quality. I led them through the High Street, and before we turned out of it made choice of the largest and fairest house I could, which had a coach without horses standing at the door, telling them it was mine, and at their service, as were the horses and master of them. My name, I told them, was Don Alvaro de Cordova, and in I went by the gate right before their faces. At our coming out of the shop, I remember, I called over one of the pages from the other side of the way, beckoning to him very stately with my hand, and pretending to order him and the rest of them to wait there till I came, but in reality only asked whether he did not belong to my uncle the Commander; he answered me he did not, and so I dismissed him, setting myself off with borrowed feathers.
When it was dark night we all went home, and, coming in, I found the counterfeit soldier, that had the clouted leg, with a white wax flambeau they had given him to attend a funeral, and he run away with it. This fellow’s name was Magazo, born at Olias; he had been captain in a play, and had fought abundance of Moors in a sword-dance. When he talked with any that had served in the Low Countries, he told them he had been in China; and if he happened to meet with any that had been there, he pretended he had served in Flanders. He talked much of encamping, and lying out in the field, though he had never been in any unless it were to louse himself; named abundance of strongholds, and knew none but the common gaols; highly extolled the memory of Don John of Austria, commended the Duke of Alva for a generous, true friend, and had abundance of names of noted Turks, galleys, and great officers at his fingers’ ends, all which he had picked out of a ballad then in vogue concerning the like affairs. But being altogether unacquainted with geography or anything of the sea, discoursing about the famous battle of Lepanto, he said that Lepanto was a very brave Turk. The poor wretch was so ignorant that he served to make us excellent sport.
Soon after in came my companion with his nose beaten almost flat to his face, all his head wrapped up in clouts very bloody and dirty. We asked him how he came into that pickle? He told us he went to the alms at the Monastery of St. Jerome, and asked for a double portion, pretending it was for some poor people that could not beg; the friars stopped so much from the common mumpers to give it him, that they, being provoked, tracked him, and found he was sucking it up with might and main in a dark corner behind a door. They fell into a dispute whether it was lawful to cheat to fill one’s own belly, and to rob others to serve one’s self. The contest rose to high words, which were followed with blows, and those raised many knobs and bumps on his head. They attacked him with the pots they received the pottage in, and the damage done to his nose came by a wooden dish they gave him to smell to, more hastily than had been convenient. They took away his sword; out came the porter at the noise, and had enough to do to part them. In short, our poor brother found himself in so much danger that he offered to return all he had eaten, and it would not serve his turn; for they insisted that he begged for others, and had no feeling of his trade. Out started from among the rest of the gang a two-handed mendicant scholar, crying, “Do but behold the figure made up of clouts like a rag baby, as poor as a pastrycook in Lent, as full of holes as a flageolet, all patches like a magpie, as greasy as an oilman, and as tattered as an old flag! Pitiful scoundrel, there are those that receive the holy saints’ alms that are fit to be bishops, or for any other dignity; I myself am a graduate of Siguenza.” The porter interposed, hearing a little old fellow cry out that though he came there for pottage he was descended from the famous Great Captain, and had many lofty relations. But I will leave them here, since our companion was now got off, and endeavouring to shake his bones into their places again.
