Chi va piano va sano, e anché lontano.
Fair and softly goes far in a day.
Piedro had now an opportunity of establishing a good character. When he went into the market with his grapes and figs, he found that he was not shunned or taunted as usual. All seemed disposed to believe in his intended reformation, and to give him a fair trial.
These favourable dispositions towards him were the consequence of Francisco’s benevolent representations. He told them that he thought Piedro had suffered enough to cure him of his tricks, and that it would be cruelty in them, because he might once have been in fault, to banish him by their reproaches from amongst them, and thus to prevent him from the means of gaining his livelihood honestly.
Piedro made a good beginning, and gave what several of the younger customers thought excellent bargains. His grapes and figs were quickly sold, and with the money that he got for them he the next day purchased from a fruit dealer a fresh supply; and thus he went on for some time, conducting himself with scrupulous honesty, so that he acquired some credit among his companions. They no longer watched him with suspicious eyes. They trusted to his measures and weights, and they counted less carefully the change which they received from him.
The satisfaction he felt from this alteration in their manners was at first delightful to Piedro; but in proportion to his credit, his opportunities of defrauding increased; and these became temptations which he had not the firmness to resist. His old manner of thinking recurred.
“I make but a few shillings a day, and this is but slow work,” said he to himself. “What signifies my good character, if I make so little by it?”
Light gains, and frequent, make a heavy purse, [314] was one of Francisco’s proverbs. But Piedro was in too great haste to get rich to take time into his account. He set his invention to work, and he did not want for ingenuity, to devise means of cheating without running the risk of detection. He observed that the younger part of the community were extremely fond of certain coloured sugar plums, and of burnt almonds.
With the money he had earned by two months’ trading in fruit he laid in a large stock of what appeared to these little merchants a stock of almonds and sugar-plums, and he painted in capital gold coloured letters upon his board, “Sweetest, largest, most admirable sugar-plums of all colours ever sold in Naples, to be had here; and in gratitude to his numerous customers, Piedro adds to these, ‘Burnt almonds gratis.’”.
This advertisement attracted the attention of all who could read; and many who could not read heard it repeated with delight. Crowds of children surrounded Piedro’s board of promise, and they all went away the first day amply satisfied. Each had a full measure of coloured sugar-plums at the usual price, and along with these a burnt almond gratis. The burnt almond had such an effect upon the public judgment, that it was universally allowed that the sugar-plums were, as the advertisement set forth, the largest, sweetest, most admirable ever sold in Naples; though all the time they were, in no respect, better than any other sugar-plums.
It was generally reported that Piedro gave full measure—fuller than any other board in the city. He measured the sugar-plums in a little cubical tin box; and this, it was affirmed, he heaped up to the top, and pressed down before he poured out the contents into the open hands of his approving customers. This belief, and Piedro’s popularity, continued longer even than he had expected; and, as he thought his sugar-plums had secured their reputation with the generous public, he gradually neglected to add burnt almonds gratis.