“Ah is it so? Well, señor, then you will look in vain yonder,” and again he nodded towards the physician’s house. “Such as he will take no apprentice without the fee be large indeed; it is not the custom of this city.”
“Then I must seek a livelihood elsewhere, or otherwise.”
“I did not say so. Now, señor, let us see what you know of medicine, and what is more important, of human nature, for of the first none of us can ever know much, but he who knows the latter will be a leader of men—or of women—who lead the men.”
And without more ado he put me many questions, each of them so shrewd and going so directly to the heart of the matter in hand, that I marvelled at his sagacity. Some of these questions were medical, dealing chiefly with the ailments of women, others were general and dealt more with their characters. At length he finished.
“You will do, señor,” he said; “you are a young man of parts and promise, though, as was to be expected from one of your years, you lack experience. There is stuff in you, señor, and you have a heart, which is a good thing, for the blunders of a man with a heart often carry him further than the cunning of the cynic; also you have a will and know how to direct it.”
I bowed, and did my best to hold back my satisfaction at his words from showing in my face.
“Still,” he went on, “all this would not cause me to submit to you the offer that I am about to make, for many a prettier fellow than yourself is after all unlucky, or a fool at the bottom, or bad tempered and destined to the dogs, as for aught I know you may be also. But I take my chance of that because you suit me in another way. Perhaps you may scarcely know it yourself, but you have beauty, señor, beauty of a very rare and singular type, which half the ladies of Seville will praise when they come to know you.”
“I am much flattered,” I said, “but might I ask what all these compliments may mean? To be brief, what is your offer?”
“To be brief then, it is this. I am in need of an assistant who must possess all the qualities that I see in you, but most of all one which I can only guess you to possess—discretion. That assistant would not be ill-paid; this house would be at his disposal, and he would have opportunities of learning the world such as are given to few. What say you?”
“I say this, señor, that I should wish to know more of the business in which I am expected to assist. Your offers sound too liberal, and I fear that I must earn your bounty by the doing of work that honest men might shrink from.”