In the autumn of 1509 he corresponded with his father about the severe illness of an assistant workman whom he kept, and also about a boy he wanted sent from Florence.  “I should be glad if you could hear of some lad at Florence, the son of good parents and poor, used to hardships, who would be willing to come and live with me here, to do the work of the house, buy what I want, and go around on messages; in his leisure time he could learn.  Should such a boy be found, please let me know; because there are only rogues here, and I am in great need of some one.”  All through his life, Michelangelo adopted the plan of keeping a young fellow to act as general servant, and at the same time to help in art-work.  Three of these servants are interwoven with the chief events of his later years, Pietro Urbano, Antonio Mini, and Francesco d’Amadore, called Urbino, the last of whom became his faithful and attached friend till death parted them.  Women about the house he could not bear.  Of the serving-maids at Rome he says:  “They are all strumpets and swine.”  Well, it seems that Lodovico found a boy, and sent him off to Rome.  What followed is related in the next letter.  “As regards the boy you sent me, that rascal of a muleteer cheated me out of a ducat for his journey.  He swore that the bargain had been made for two broad golden ducats, whereas all the lads who come here with the muleteers pay only ten carlins.  I was more angry at this than if I had lost twenty-five ducats, because I saw that his father had resolved to send him on mule-back like a gentleman.  Oh, I had never such good luck, not I!  Then both the father and the lad promised that he would do everything, attend to the mule, and sleep upon the ground, if it was wanted.  And now I am obliged to look after him.  As if I needed more worries than the one I have had ever since I arrived here!  My apprentice, whom I left in Rome, has been ill from the day on which I returned until now.  It is true that he is getting better; but he lay for about a month in peril of his life, despaired of by the doctors, and I never went to bed.  There are other annoyances of my own; and now I have the nuisance of this lad, who says that he does not want to waste time, that he wants to study, and so on.  At Florence he said he would be satisfied with two or three hours a day.  Now the whole day is not enough for him, but he must needs be drawing all the night.  It is all the fault of what his father tells him.  If I complained, he would say that I did not want him to learn.  I really require some one to take care of the house; and if the boy had no mind for this sort of work, they ought not to have put me to expense.  But they are good-for-nothing, and are working toward a certain end of their own.  Enough, I beg you to relieve me of the boy; he has bored me so that I cannot bear it any longer.  The muleteer has been so well paid that he can very well take him back to Florence.  Besides, he is a friend of the father.  Tell the father to send for him home.  I shall not pay another farthing.  I have no money.  I will have patience till he sends; and if he does not send, I will turn the boy out of doors.  I did so already on the second day of his arrival, and other times also, and the father does not believe it.