“Then taste it, sir,” said I, “and try whether this is as good as you have eaten.”  Presently he was grinding the food as ravenously as a greyhound.

In this manner we passed eight or ten days, my master taking the air every day with the most perfect ease of a man of fashion, and returning home to feast on the contributions of the charitable, levied by poor Lazaro.  Whereas my former masters declined to feed me, this one expected that I should maintain him.  But I was much more sorry for him than angry at him, and with all his poverty I found greater satisfaction in serving him than either of the others.

At length a man came to demand the rent, which of course my master could not pay.  He answered the man very courteously that he was going out to change a piece of gold.  But this time he made his exit for good.  Next morning the man came to seize my master’s effects, and on finding there were none, he had me arrested.  But I was soon found to be innocent, and released.  Thus did I lose my third and poorest master.

IV.—­The Dealer in Indulgences

My fourth master was a holy friar, eager in the pursuit of every kind of secular business and amusement.  He kept me so incessantly on the trot that I could not endure it, so I took my leave of him without asking it.

The next master that fortune threw in my way was a bulero, or dealer in papal indulgences, one of the cleverest and most impudent rogues that I have ever seen.  He practised all manner of deceit, and resorted to the most subtle inventions to gain his end.  A regular account of his artifices would fill a volume; but I will only recount a little manoeuvre which will give you some idea of his genius and invention.

He had preached two or three days at a place near Toledo, but found his indulgences go off but slowly.  Being at his wits’ end what to do, he invited the people to the church next morning to take his farewell.  After supper at the inn that evening, he and the alguazil quarrelled and began to revile each other, my master calling the alguazil a thief, the alguazil declaring that the bulero was an impostor, and that his indulgences were forged.  Peace was not restored until the alguazil had been taken away to another inn.

Next morning, during my master’s farewell sermon, the alguazil entered the church and publicly repeated his charge, that the indulgences were forged.  Whereupon my devout master threw himself on his knees in the pulpit, and exclaimed:  “O Lord, Thou knowest how cruelly I am calumniated!  I pray Thee, therefore, to show by a miracle the whole truth as to this matter.  If I deal in iniquity may this pulpit sink with me seven fathoms below the earth, but if what is said be false let the author of the calumny be punished, so that all present may be convinced of his malice.”