“And what would you say to me?” said Francisco, following him a few steps. “Do not detain me long, because my friends will wait for me.”
“If they are friends, they can wait,” said Piedro. “You need not be ashamed of being seen in my company now, I can tell you; for I am, as I always told you I should be, the richest man of the two.”
“Rich! you rich?” cried Francisco. “Well, then, it was impossible you could mean to trick that poor man out of his good hat.”
“Impossible!” said Piedro. Francisco did not consider that those who have habits of pilfering continue to practise them often, when the poverty which first tempted them to dishonesty ceases. “Impossible! You stare when I tell you I am rich; but the thing is so. Moreover, I am well with my father at home. I have friends in Naples, and I call myself Piedro the Lucky. Look you here,” said he, producing an old gold coin. “This does not smell of fish, does it? My father is no longer a fisherman, nor I either. Neither do I sell sugar-plums to children: nor do I slave myself in a vineyard, like some folks; but fortune, when I least expected it, has stood my friend. I have many pieces of gold like this. Digging in my father’s garden, it was my luck to come to an old Roman vessel full of gold. I have this day agreed for a house in Naples for my father. We shall live, whilst we can afford it, like great folks, you will see; and I shall enjoy the envy that will be felt by some of my old friends, the little Neapolitan merchants, who will change their note when they see my change of fortune. What say you to all this, Francisco the Honest?”
“That I wish you joy of your prosperity, and hope you may enjoy it long and well.”
“Well, no doubt of that. Everyone who has it enjoys it well. He always dances well to whom fortune pipes.” [333a]
“Yes, no longer pipe, no longer dance,” replied Francisco; and here they parted; for Piedro walked away abruptly, much mortified to perceive that his prosperity did not excite much envy, or command any additional respect from Francisco.
“I would rather,” said Francisco, when he returned to Carlo and Rosetta, who waited for him under the portico, where he left them—“I would rather have such good friends as you, Carlo and Arthur, and some more I could name, and, besides that, have a clear conscience, and work honestly for my bread, than be as lucky as Piedro. Do you know he has found a treasure, he says, in his father’s garden—a vase full of gold? He showed me one of the gold pieces.”
“Much good may they do him. I hope he came honestly by them,” said Carlo; “but ever since the affair of the double measure, I suspect double-dealing always from him. It is not our affair, however. Let him make himself happy his way, and we ours.
“He that would live in peace and rest,
Must hear, and see, and say the best.” [333b]