Scip. Enough said, Berganza; I understand you; go on.

Berg. Would that others for whom I say this understood me as well!  For there is something or other in my nature which makes me feel greatly shocked when I see a cavalier make a buffoon of himself, and taking pride in being able to play at thimblerig, and in dancing the chacona to perfection, I know a cavalier who boasted, that he had, at the request of a sacristan, cut out thirty-two paper ornaments, to stick upon the black cloth over a monument; and he was so proud of his performance that he took his friends to see it, as though he were showing them pennons and trophies taken from the enemy, and hung over the tombs of his forefathers.  Well, this merchant I have been telling you of had two sons, one aged twelve, the other about fourteen, who were studying the humanities in the classes of the Company of Jesus.  They went in pomp to the college, accompanied by their tutor, and by pages to carry their books, and what they called their Vademecum.  To see them go with such parade, on horseback in fine weather, and in a carriage when it rained, made me wonder at the plain manner in which their father went abroad upon his business, attended by no other servant than a negro, and sometimes mounted upon a sorry mule.

Scip. You must know, Berganza, that it is a customary thing with the merchants of Seville, and of other cities also, to display their wealth and importance, not in their own persons, but in those of their sons:  for merchants are greater in their shadows than in themselves; and as they rarely attend to anything else than their bargains, they spend little on themselves; but as ambition and wealth burn to display themselves, they show their own in the persons of their sons, maintaining them as sumptuously as if they were sons of princes.  Sometimes too they purchase titles for them, and set upon their breasts the mark that so much distinguishes men of rank from the commonalty.

Berg. It is ambition, but a generous ambition that seeks to improve one’s condition without prejudice to others.

Scip. Seldom or never can ambition consist with abstinence from injury to others.

Berg. Have we not said that we are not to speak evil of any one?

Scip. Ay, but I don’t speak evil of any one.

Berg. You now convince me of the truth of what I have often heard say, that a person of a malicious tongue will utter enough to blast ten families, and calumniate twenty good men; and if he is taken to task for it, he will reply that he said nothing; or, if he did, he meant nothing by it, and would not have said it if he had thought any one would take it amiss.  In truth, Scipio, one had need of much wisdom and wariness to be able to entertain a conversation for two hours, without approaching the confines of evil speaking.  In my own case, for instance, brute as I am, I see