Berg. With respect to your question, how I set about getting a master:  you are aware that humility is the base and foundation of all virtues, and that without it there are none.  It smooths inconveniences, overcomes difficulties, and is a means which always conducts us to glorious ends; it makes friends of enemies, tempers the wrath of the choleric, and abates the arrogance of the proud:  it is the mother of modesty, and sister of temperance.  I availed myself of this virtue whenever I wanted to get a place in any house, after having first considered and carefully ascertained that it was one which could maintain a great dog.  I then placed myself near the door; and whenever any one entered whom I guessed to be a stranger, I barked at him; and when the master entered, I went up to him with my head down, my tail wagging, and licked his shoes.  If they drove me out with sticks, I took it patiently, and turned with the same gentleness to fawn in the same way on the person who beat me.  The rest let me alone, seeing my perseverance and my generous behaviour; and after one or two turns of this kind, I got a footing in the house.  I was a good servant:  they took a liking to me immediately; and I was never turned out, but dismissed myself, or, to speak more properly, I ran away; and sometimes I met with such a master, that but for the persecution of fortune I should have remained with him to this day.

Scip. It was just in the same way that I got into the houses of the masters I served.  It seems that we read men’s thoughts.

Berg. I will tell you now what happened to me after I left the fold in the power of those reprobates.  I returned, as I have said, to Seville, the asylum of the poor and refuge for the destitute, which embraces in its greatness not only the rude but the mighty and nourishing.  I planted myself at the door of a large house belonging to a merchant, exerted myself as usual, and after a few trials gained admission.  They kept me tied up behind the door by day, and let me loose at night.  I did my duty with great care and diligence, barked at strangers, and growled at those who were not well known.  I did not sleep at night, but visited the yards, and walked about the terraces, acting as general guard over our own house and those of the neighbours; and my master was so pleased with my good service, that he gave orders I should be well treated, and have a ration of bread, with the bones from his table, and the kitchen scraps.  For this I showed my gratitude by no end of leaps when I saw my master, especially when he came home after being abroad; and such were my demonstrations of joy that my master ordered me to be untied, and left loose day and night.  As soon as I was set free, I ran to him, and gambolled all round him, without venturing to lay my paws on him; for I bethought me of that ass in AEsop’s Fables, who was ass enough to think of fondling his master in the same manner as his favourite lap-dog, and was well basted for his pains.  I understood that fable to signify, that what is graceful and comely in some is not so in others.  Let the ribald flout and jeer, the mountebank tumble,—­let the common fellow, who has made it his business, imitate the song of birds and the gestures of animals, but not the man of quality, who can deserve no credit or renown from any skill in these things.