After the first transports of my grief were over, I began to consider, that instead of giving way to remorse, I ought rather to bear up against my ill fate. I summoned back my resolution, and by way of comfort, said to myself as I was dressing⁠—“I am still in luck that the knaves have not carried off my clothes and what little money I had in my pocket.” I gave them some credit for being so considerate. They had even been generous enough to leave me my boots, which I parted with to the landlord for a third of their cost. At last I sallied out of the ready-furnished lodging, unencumbered, heaven be praised, with baggage or attendance. The first thing I did was to go and see if my mules were still at the inn, where we alighted the evening before. It was not to be supposed that Ambrose would have neglected a due attention to them; and it would have been well for me if I had always taken such exact measure of his character. I learned that he had not waited for the morning, but had been careful to fetch them off overnight. Under these circumstances, satisfied I should never see them again, any more than my portmanteau, I walked sulkily along the streets, musing on the future plans I should adopt. I was tempted to go back to Burgos, and once more have recourse to Doña Mencía; but, regarding this as an abuse of that lady’s goodness, and being aware, moreover, what a fool I should look like, I thought it best to forego that idea. I made a vow too for the future to be on my guard against women. I could have sent the chaste Susanna to the house of correction. From time to time my ring caught my eye; it was a present from Camilla! and I was ready to burst with anguish. Alas! thought I, I am no judge of jewelry, but I shall be, by experience of these hucksters who exchange without a robbery. I need not go to a jeweller to be told I am an ass! I can see my own face in my ruby.

Yet I did not neglect to know the truth respecting the value of my ring, and showed it to a lapidary, who rated it at three ducats. At such an estimate, though as much as I expected, I made a formal surrender to the devil, of the Philippine Isles, the governor and his niece; or rather, I only restored his own subjects to their lawful sovereign. As I was going out of the lapidary’s shop, a young fellow brushed by me, and on looking round, made a full stop. I could not recollect his name at first, though his features were perfectly familiar to me. “How now, Gil Blas, said he, are you ashamed of an old acquaintance? or have two years so altered the son of Núñez the barber, that you do not know him? Do not you recollect Fabricio, your townsman and schoolfellow? How often have we kept, before Doctor Godínez, upon universals and metaphysics!”

These words did not flow so fast as my recollection, and we embraced with mutual good will. “Well, my friend,” resumed he, “I am overjoyed to meet with you. Words fall short.⁠ ⁠… But how is this? Why, you look like⁠—as Heaven is my judge, you are dressed like a grandee! A gentleman’s sword, silk stockings, a velvet doublet and cloak, embroidered with silver! Plague take it! this is getting on in the world with a vengeance. I will lay a wager you are in with some old moneyed harridan.”

“You reckon without your host,” said I, “my affairs are not so prosperous as you imagine.”

“That will not do for me,” replied he, “I know better things; but you have a mind to be close. And that fine ruby on your finger, master Gil Blas, whence comes that, if I may be so bold?”

“It comes,” quoth I, “from an infernal jade. Fabricio, my dear Fabricio, far from being point, quint, and quatorze with the ladies of Valladolid, you are to know, my friend, that I am their complete bubble.”

I uttered these last words so ruefully, that Fabricio saw plainly that some trick had been played upon me. He was anxious to learn why I was out of humor with the lovely sex. I had no difficulty in satisfying his curiosity; but as the story was a long one, and besides we had no mind to part in a hurry, we went into a coffeehouse to be a little more at ease. There I recounted to him, during breakfast, all that had happened to me since my departure from Oviedo. My adventures he thought whimsical enough; and testifying his sympathy in my present uneasy circumstances, added⁠—“We must make the best, my good lad, of all our misfortunes in this life. Is a man of parts in distress? he waits patiently for better luck. Such a one, as Cicero truly observes, never suffers himself to be humbled so low as to forget that he is a man. For my own part, that is just my character; in or out of favor there is no sinking me; I always float on the surface of ill-luck. For example, I was in love with a girl of some family at Oviedo, and was beloved by her in return. I asked her of her father in marriage, he refused. Many a young fellow would have died of grief; but no! mark my spirit, I carried off the little baggage. She was lively, heedless, and coquettish: pleasure consequently was always uppermost to the prejudice of duty. I took her with me for six months backwards and forwards about Galicia; thence, adopting my taste for travelling, she had a mind to go to Portugal, but in other company⁠—more food for despair. Yet I did not give in under the weight of this new affliction; but, improving on Menelaus, thought myself much obliged to the Paris who had whispered in the ear of my Helen, for ridding me of a bad bargain; I therefore determined to keep the peace. After that, not finding it convenient to return to the Asturias and balance accounts with justice, I went forward into the kingdom of León, spending between one town and another all the loose cash remaining from the rape of my Indian princess; for we had both of us bird-limed our fingers at our departure from Oviedo. I got to Palencia with a solitary ducat, out of which I was obliged to buy a pair of shoes. The remainder would not go far. My situation became rather perplexing. I began already to be reduced to short allowance; something must be done. I resolved to go out to service. My first place was with a woollen-draper in a large way, whose son was a lad of wit and fashion; here was a complete antidote to fasting, but then there was a little awkwardness. The father ordered me to dog the son, the son begged my assistance in imposing on the father; it was necessary to take one side or other. Entreaties sound more musical than commands, and my taste for music got me turned out of doors. The next service I entered into was with an old painter, who undertook, as a matter of favor, to teach me the principles of his art; but he was so busy in feeding me with knowledge, that he forgot to give me any meat. This neglect of substance for shadow disgusted me with my abode at Palencia. I came to Valladolid, where, by the greatest good luck in the world, I was hired by a governor of the hospital; I am with him still, and delighted with my quarters. My master, Señor Manuel Ordóñez, is a man of profound piety. He always walks with his eyes cast downwards, and a large rosary in his hand. They say that from his early youth, having been a close inspector of the poor, he has interested himself in their affairs with unwearied zeal. Charity draws down a blessing on the charitable, everything has prospered with him. What a favorite of Heaven! The more he does for the poor, the richer he grows.”

As Fabricio was going on in this manner, I interrupted him. “It is well you are satisfied with your lot; but, between ourselves, surely you might play your part better in the world.”

“Do not you believe it, Gil Blas,” replied he; “be assured that for a man of my temper a more agreeable situation could not possibly have been devised. The trade of a lackey is toilsome, to be sure, for a poor creature; but for a lad of spirit it is all enchantment. A superior genius, when he gets a service, does not go about it like a lumpish simpleton. He enters into a family as viceroy over the master, not as an inferior minister. He begins by measuring the length of his employer’s foot; by lending himself to his weaknesses, he gains his confidence, and ends with leading him by the nose. Such has been my plan of operation at the governor’s. I knew the pilgrim at once by his staff; his wish was for an earthly canonization. I pretended to believe him to be the saint he wished to be taken for; hypocrisy costs nothing. Nay, I went further, for I took pattern by him; and playing the same part before him which he played before others, I out-cozened the cozener, and by degrees got to be majordomo. I am in hopes some day or other, under his wing, to have the fingering of the poor’s-box. It may bring a blessing upon me as well as another; for I have caught the flame from him, and already feel deeply for the interests of charity.”

“These are fine hopes, my dear Fabricio,” replied I; “and I congratulate you upon them. For my part, I am determined on my first plan. I shall straight way convert my embroidered suit into a cassock, repair to Salamanca, and there, enlisting under the banner of the university, fulfil the sacred duties of a tutor.”

“A fine scheme!” exclaimed Fabricio, “a pleasant conceit! What madness, at your age, to turn pedant. Are you aware, you stupid fellow, what you take upon yourself by that choice? As soon as you are settled, all the house will be upon the watch, your most trivial actions will be minutely sifted. You will lead a life of incessant constraint; you must set yourself off with a counterfeit outside, and affect to entertain a double set of the cardinal virtues in your bosom. You will not have a moment to bestow on pleasure. The everlasting censor of your pupil, your days will pass in teaching grammar and administering saintly reprehension, when he shall say or do anything against decorum. After so much labor and confinement, what will be your reward? If the little gentleman is a pickle, they will lay all the blame on your bad management; and you will be kicked out of the family, it may be, without your stipend. Do not tell me then of a tutor’s employment; it is worse than a cure of souls. But talk as much as you will about a lackey’s occupation, that is a sinecure, and pledges you to nothing. Suppose one’s master not to be immaculate? A servant of superior genius will flatter his vices, and not unfrequently turn them to account. A footman lives at his ease in a good family. After having ate and drank his fill, he goes to bed peaceably, without troubling himself who pays the bills.

“I should never have done, my dear fellow,” pursued he, “were I to enumerate all the advantages of service. Trust me, Gil Blas, discard forever your foolish wish of being a tutor, and follow my example.”

“So be it; but, Fabricio,” replied I, “governors like yours are not to be met with every day; and if resolved to go to service, I should like at least to get a good situation.”

“O! you are in the right,” said he, “and that shall be my concern. I will get you a comfortable place, if it was only to snatch a fine fellow from the jaws of the university.”

The near approach of poverty with which I was threatened, and Fabricio’s apparent good case, having more weight with me than his arguments, I determined to wear a livery. On which we sallied forth from the tavern, and my townsman said: “I am going to introduce you to a man, to whom most of the servants resort when they are on the ramble; he has eavesdroppers about him to pick up all that passes in families. He knows at once where the servants are going away, and keeps a correct register, not only of vacant places, but of vacant masters, with their good and bad properties. The fellow has been a friar in some convent or other. In short, he it was who got me my place.”

While we were conversing about so singular an office of intelligence, the son of Núñez the barber took me into a street which had no thoroughfare. We went into a mean house, where we found a man about fifty writing at a table. We wished him good day, with quite as much humility as became us: but, whether it was from natural pride, or that, from a habit of seeing none but lackeys and coachmen, he had got a trick of receiving his company with an easy freedom, without rising from his seat, he just gave a slight nod. He seemed surprised that a young man in embroidered velvet should want a place; he had rather expected me to have wanted a servant. However, he was not kept long in doubt, since Fabricio said at once: “Señor Arias de Londoña, give me leave to introduce one of my best friends. He is a youth of good connections, whom adverse circumstances have reduced to the necessity of going to service. Have the goodness to provide for him handsomely, and you may trust to his gratitude.”

“Gentlemen,” replied Arias cooly, “this is the way with you all; before you are settled, you make the finest promises in the world: but afterwards, Lord help us! your memories are very short.”

“The deuce!” replied Fabricio, “why, you do not complain of me? Have not I done the thing genteelly?”

“You ought to have done it much better,” rejoined Arias: “your place is better than a clerk in a public office, and you paid me as if I had quartered you upon a poor author.”

Here I interfered, and told Master Arias, that to convince him I was not a shabby fellow, I would make my acknowledgments beforehand; at the same time taking out two ducats, with an assurance of not stopping there if he got me into a good birth.

He seemed to like my mode of dealing. “There are,” said he, “some very good places vacant. I will give you a list of them, and you shall take your choice.” With these words, he put on his spectacles, opened a register on the table, turned over a few of the leaves, and began reading to this effect: “Captain Torbellino wants a footman; a hasty, harebrained, humorsome chap; scolds incessantly, swears, kicks his servants, and very often cripples them.”

“Go on to the next,” cried I, “at this picture; such a captain will never do for me.”

My sprightliness made Arias smile, and he went on with his catalogue thus: “Doña Menuela de Sandoval, a superannuated dowager, peevish and fantastical, is in want at this very time; she keeps but one, and him never for four and twenty hours. There has been a livery in the house for these ten years, which fits every newcomer, whether tall or short. They only just try it on; so that it is as good as new, though it has had two thousand owners. Doctor Alvar Fáñez wants a journeyman; an eminent member of the faculty! He boards his family very handsomely, has everything comfortable about him, and gives very high wages; but he is a little too fond of experiments. When he gets a parcel of bad drugs, which happens very often, there is a pretty quick succession of new servants.”

“O! I do not in the least doubt it,” interrupted Fabricio with a horselaugh. “Upon my word you give a fine character of your customers.”

“Patience,” said Arias de Londoña; “we have not yet got to the end: there is variety enough.” Thereupon he continued to read on: “Doña Alfonsa de Solis, an old devotee, who lives two thirds of her time at church, and always keeps her servant at her apron string, has been in want for these three weeks. The Licentiate Sédillo, an old prebendary of the chapter here, turned away his servant yesterday evening.⁠ ⁠…”

“Halt there, Señor Arias de Londoña,” cried Fabricio at that passage; “we will stick to the church. The Licentiate Sédillo is one of my master’s friends, and I am very well acquainted with him. I know he has for his housekeeper an old hypocrite, called Dame Jacintha, who is complete mistress of the family. It is one of the best houses in Valladolid. A very idle life, and plenty of excellent meat and drink. Besides, his reverence is an old, gouty, infirm man, likely soon to make his will; there is a legacy to be looked after. That is a delightful prospect for one of our cloth! Gil Blas,” added he, turning round to me, “let us lose no time, my friend, but go immediately to the licentiate’s house. I will introduce you myself, and give you a character.”

At these words, for fear of missing such an opportunity, we took a hasty leave of Señor Arias, who assured me, for my money, that if I failed here, he would do something as good for me elsewhere.