"By St. George of England! not I. I have seen too much of the world, to traduce its fair surface in so heedless a manner. England, France, Burgundy, Germany, and all those distant countries of the north, are just as level and flat as our own Castile."
"Why, then, didst thou see the upper sails of the Englishman first?"
"Why, father—why—because they were first visible. Yes, because they came first into view."
"Do the English put the largest of their sails uppermost on the masts?"
"They would be fools if they did. Though no great navigators—our neighbors the Portuguese, and the people of Genoa, exceeding all others in that craft—though no great navigators, the English are not so surpassingly stupid. Thou wilt remember the force of the winds, and understand that the larger the sail the lower should be its position."
"Then how happened it that thou sawest the smaller object before the larger?"
"Truly, excellent Fray Pedro, thou hast not conversed with this Christoforo for nothing! A question is not a reason."
"Socrates was fond of questions, son; but he expected answers."
"Peste! as they say at the court of King Louis. I am not Socrates, my good father, but thy old pupil and kinsman, Luis de Bobadilla, the truant nephew of the queen's favorite, the Marchioness of Moya, and as well-born a cavalier as there is in Spain—though somewhat given to roving, if my enemies are to be believed."
"Neither thy pedigree, thy character, nor thy vagaries, need be given to me, Don Luis de Bobadilla, since I have known thee and thy career from childhood. Thou hast one merit that none will deny thee, and that is, a respect for truth; and never hast thou more completely vindicated thy character, in this particular, than when thou saidst thou were not Socrates."