The poet of the Asturias, as the reader, if he thought of him, may have remarked, was very negligent in his intercourse with me. It was not to be expected that my employments would leave me time to go and look after him. I had not seen him since the critical discussion touching the Iphigenia of Euripides, when chance threw me across him, as he came out of a printing-house. I accosted him, saying, “So! so! Master Núñez, you have got among the printers: this looks as if we were threatened with some new production.”

“You may indeed prepare yourselves for such an event,” answered he: “I have a pamphlet just ready for publication which is likely to make some noise in the literary world.”

“There can be no question about its merit,” replied I; “but I cannot conceive why you waste your time in writing pamphlets: it should seem as if such squibs and rockets were scarcely worth the powder expended in their manufacture.”

“It is very true,” rejoined Fabricio: “and I am well aware that none but the most vulgar gazers are caught by such holiday fireworks; however, this single one has escaped me, and I must own that it is a child of necessity. Hunger, as you know, will bring the wolf out of the forest.”

“What!” exclaimed I, “is it the author of the Count of Saldaña who holds this language? A man with an annuity of two thousand crowns?”

“Gently, my friend,” interrupted Núñez: “I am no longer a pensioned poet. The affairs of the treasurer Don Bertrand are all at sixes and sevens: he has been at the gaming table, and played with the public money: an extent has issued, and my rent-charge is gone posthaste to the devil.”

“That is a sad affair,” said I; “but may not matters come round again in that quarter?”

“No chance of it,” answered he: “Señor Gómez del Ribero, in plight as destitute as that of his poor bard, is sunk forever; nor can he, as they say, by any possible contrivance be set afloat again.”

“In that case, my good friend,” replied I, “we must look out for some post which may make you amends for the loss of your annuity.”

“I will ease your conscience on that score,” said he: “though you should offer me the wealth of the Indies as a salary in one of your offices, I would reject the boon: clerkships are no object to a partner in the firm of the Muses; a literary berth or absolute starvation for your humble servant! If you must have it plump, I was born to live and die a poet, and the man whose destiny is hanging will never be drowned.

“But do not suppose,” continued he, “that we are altogether forlorn and destitute: besides that we accommodate the requisites of independence to our finances, we do not look far beyond our noses in calculating the average of our fortunes. It is insinuated that we often dine with the most abstemious orders of the religious; but our sanctity in this particular is too credulously imputed. There is not one of my brother wits, without excepting the calculators of almanacs, who has not a plate laid for him at some substantial table: for my own part, I have the run of two good houses. To the master of one I have dedicated a romance; and he is the first commissioner of taxes who was ever associated with the Muses: the other is a rich tradesman in Madrid, whose lust is to get wits about him; he is not nice in his choice, and this town furnishes abundance to those who value wit more by quantity than quality.”

“Then I no longer feel for you,” said I to the poet of the Asturias, “since you are satisfied in your condition. But be that as it may, I assure you once more, that you have a friend in Gil Blas, however you may slight him: if you want my purse, come and take it: it will not fail you at a pinch; and you must not stand between me and my sincere friendship.”

“By that burst of sentiment,” exclaimed Núñez, “I know and thank my friend Santillane: in return, let me give you a salutary caution. While my lord duke is in his meridian, and you are all in all with him, reap, bind, and gather in your harvest: when the sun sets, the gleaners are sent home.”

I asked Fabricio whether his suspicions were surely founded, and he returned me this answer: “My information comes from an old knight of Calatrava, who pokes his nose into secrets of all sorts; his authority passes current at Madrid, much as that of the Pythian newsmongers did through Greece; and thus his oracle was pronounced in my hearing: My lord duke has a host of enemies in battle array against him; he reckons too securely upon his influence with the king; for his majesty, as the report goes, begins to take in hostile representations with patience.” I thanked Núñez for his friendly warning, but without much faith in his prediction: my master’s authority seemed rooted in the court, like the tempest-scoffing firmness of an oak in the native soil of the forest.