“Only lack of money to return to my native country,” said he.
“What were you doing at Madrid, and why did you leave?”
“I was there four years as valet to Dr. Pistoria, physician to the King of Spain, but on my health failing I left him. Here is a certificate which will shew you that I gave satisfaction.”
“What can you do?”
“I write a good hand, I can assist a gentleman as his secretary, and I intend being a scribe when I get home. Here are some verses I copied yesterday.”
“You write well; but can you write correctly without a book?”
“I can write from dictation in French, Latin, and Spanish.”
“Correctly?”
“Yes, sir, if the dictation is done properly, for it is the business of the one who dictates to see that everything is correct.”
I saw that Master Gaetan Costa was an ignoramus, but in spite of that I took him to my room and told Le Duc to address him in Spanish. He answered well enough, but on my dictating to him in Italian and French I found he had not the remotest ideas on orthography.