“You have been a soldier of the king of Spain,” said I; “how did you like the service?”
“Not so well, but that I should have been glad to leave it forty years ago; the pay was bad, and the treatment worse. I will now speak Swiss to you, for, if I am not much mistaken, you are a German man, and understand the speech of Lucerne; I should soon have deserted from the service of Spain, as I did from that of the Pope, whose soldier I was in my early youth before I came here; but I had married a woman of Minorca, by whom I had two children; it was this that detained me in those parts so long; before, however, I left Minorca, my wife died, and as for my children, one went east, the other west, and I know not what became of them; I intend shortly to return to Lucerne, and live there like a duke.”
“Have you, then, realized a large capital in Spain?” said I, glancing at his hat and the rest of his apparel.
“Not a cuart, not a cuart; these two wash-balls are all that I possess.”
“Perhaps you are the son of good parents, and have lands and money in your own country wherewith to support yourself.”
“Not a heller, not a heller; my father was hangman of Lucerne, and when he died, his body was seized to pay his debts.”
“Then doubtless,” said I, “you intend to ply your trade of soap-boiling at Lucerne; you are quite right, my friend, I know of no occupation more honourable or useful.”
“I have no thoughts of plying my trade at Lucerne,” replied Bennet; “and now, as I see you are a German man, Lieber Herr, and as I like your countenance and your manner of speaking, I will tell you in confidence that I know very little of my trade, and have already been turned out of several fabriques as an evil workman; the two wash-balls that I carry in my pocket are not of my own making. In kurtzen, I know little more of soap-boiling than I do of tailoring, horse-farriery, or shoe-making, all of which I have practised.”
“Then I know not how you can hope to live like a hertzog in your native canton, unless you expect that the men of Lucerne, in consideration of your services to the Pope and to the king of Spain, will maintain you in splendour at the public expense.”
“Lieber Herr,” said Benedict, “the men of Lucerne are by no means fond of maintaining the soldiers of the Pope and the king of Spain at their own expense; many of the guard who have returned thither beg their bread in the streets, but when I go, it shall be in a coach drawn by six mules, with a treasure, a mighty schatz which lies in the church of Saint James of Compostella, in Galicia.”