"The old dotard was unable to withstand the well-feigned remorse of his mistress, and has risen thus early to console her. He found her in tears; and so well has she played her part that he has just assured her of a full pardon for the past: nay, more, to compensate for the sacrifice of her much-prized tresses, he is, at this moment, promising to enable her to cut a figure in the world, by purchasing for her a handsome country-house, which is just about to be sold, near the Escurial." "All the shops are opened, I perceive," said the Student; "and I observe already a cavalier now entering a tavern." "That cavalier," replied Asmodeus, "is a youth of family, who is troubled with the prevailing mania for writing nonsense, that he may pass as an author. He is not absolutely without talent; he has even enough to enable him to detect its want in the dramas which are at present produced on your stage; but not so much as to qualify him to write a tolerable one himself. He has gone into that house to order a grand repast: he gives a dinner to-day to four comedians, whose good graces he would purchase in favour of a wretched comedy of his concoction, which he is on the point of presenting to their company. What will not money do? "Apropos of authors," continued the Devil, "there now are two just meeting in the street. Do you notice the mocking style of their salutes? They despise each other thoroughly: and they are right. One of them writes as easily as the poet Crispinus, whom Horace compares to the bellows of a forge; and the other wastes a vast deal of time in composing works as cold and insipid as a water ice." "Who is the little man descending from his carriage at the door of that church?" asked Zambullo. "He is a person worthy your remark," replied the Cripple. "It is not yet ten years since he abandoned the office of a notary, in which he was senior clerk, to shut himself up in the Carthusian monastery of Saragoza. At the end of a six-months noviciate, however, he left the convent, and re-appeared in Madrid; where those who had formerly known him were amazed to see him all at once become one of the principal members of the Council of the Indies. His sudden fortune is still the wonder of the town. Some say he has sold himself to the Devil; others, that he is the beloved of some rich dowager; and some, again, insist that he must have found a treasure." "Well! you know all about it, of course," interrupted Don Cleophas. "I should wonder if I did not," replied the Demon; "but I will unveil this mystery for you. [Illustration: the novice unearths the casket]