“Francisco! Francisco!—your measure, lend us your measure!” exclaimed a number of little merchants crowding round him. “You have a measure for sugar-plums; and we have all agreed to refer to that, and to see how much we have been cheated before we go to break Piedro’s bench and declare him bankrupt, [318]—the punishment for all knaves.”
They pressed on to Francisco’s board, obtained his measure, found that it held something more than a quarter above the quantity that could be contained in Piedro’s. The cries of the enraged populace were now most clamorous. They hung the just and the unjust measures upon high poles; and, forming themselves into a formidable phalanx, they proceeded towards Piedro’s well known yellow lettered board, exclaiming, as they went along, “Common cause! common cause! The little Neapolitan merchants will have no knaves amongst them! Break his bench! break his bench! He is a bankrupt in honesty.”
Piedro saw the mob, heard the indignant clamour, and, terrified at the approach of numbers, he fled with the utmost precipitation, having scarcely time to pack up half his sugar-plums. There was a prodigious number, more than would have filled many honest measures, scattered upon the ground and trampled under foot by the crowd. Piedro’s bench was broken, and the public vengeance wreaked itself also upon his treacherous painted board. It was, after being much disfigured by various inscriptions expressive of the universal contempt for Piedro, hung up in a conspicuous part of the market-place; and the false measure was fastened like a cap upon one of its corners. Piedro could never more show his face in this market, and all hopes of friendship—all hopes of partnership with Francisco—were for ever at an end.
If rogues would calculate, they would cease to be rogues; for they would certainly discover that it is most for their interest to be honest—setting aside the pleasure of being esteemed and beloved, of having a safe conscience, with perfect freedom from all the various embarrassments and terror to which knaves are subject. Is it not clear that our crafty hero would have gained rather more by a partnership with Francisco, and by a fair character, than he could possibly obtain by fraudulent dealing in comfits?
When the mob had dispersed, after satisfying themselves with executing summary justice upon Piedro’s bench and board, Francisco found a carpenter’s rule lying upon the ground near Piedro’s broken bench, which he recollected to have seen in the hands of Carlo. He examined it carefully, and he found Carlo’s name written upon it, and the name of the street where he lived; and though it was considerably out of his way, he set out immediately to restore the rule, which was a very handsome one, to its rightful owner. After a hot walk through several streets, he overtook Carlo, who had just reached the door of his own house. Carlo was particularly obliged to him, he said, for restoring this rule to him, as it was a present from the master of a vessel, who employed his father to do carpenter’s work for him. “One should not praise one’s self, they say,” continued Carlo, “but I long so much to gain your good opinion, that I must tell you the whole history of the rule you have restored. It was given to me for having measured the work and made up the bill of a whole pleasure-boat myself. You may guess I should have been sorry enough to have lost it. Thank you for its being once more in my careless hands, and tell me, I beg, whenever I can do you any service. By-the-by, I can make up for you a fruit stall. I’ll do it to-morrow, and it shall be the admiration of the market. Is there anything else you could think of for me?”
“Why, yes,” said Francisco; “since you are so good-natured, perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell me the meaning of some of those lines and figures that I see upon your rule. I have a great curiosity to know their use.”
“That I’ll explain to you with pleasure, as far as I know them myself; but when I’m at fault, my father, who is cleverer than I am, and understands trigonometry, can help us out.”
“Trigonometry!” repeated Francisco, not a little alarmed at the high sounding word; “that’s what I certainly shall never understand.”
“Oh, never fear,” replied Carlo, laughing. “I looked just as you do now—I felt just as you do now—all in a fright and a puzzle, when I first heard of angles and sines, and cosines, and arcs and centres, and complements and tangents.”
“Oh mercy! mercy!” interrupted Francisco, whilst Carlo laughed, with a benevolent sense of superiority.