Resolving to quit a service the perquisites of which were all kicks and no halfpence, Lazarillo led his master to the Arcade at Escalona, beside which a brook ran rather swiftly. In order to cross this it was necessary either to jump or to wade almost up to the neck in water, and when this was explained to him the old beggar chose the former method of negotiating it. The crafty Lazarillo told him that the narrowest place was opposite a great stone pillar, and the wretched mendicant, taking a step or two backward to give him impetus, leapt with such force that he crashed into the pillar, at the bottom of which he immediately fell unconscious. With a shout of triumph Lazarillo ran off, and from that day never set eyes upon the blind man again. The next master whose service he entered was a priest, and if his experiences with the beggar had been unhappy, they were as nothing to what he now had to bear, for the holy man was a miser of the most pitiful description, and starved him in a shameful manner. He kept his bread in a large wooden chest, to which Lazarillo got a travelling tinker to fit a key during the priest's absence, and was thus able to regale himself daily, until his miserly master discovered the shortage. This he attributed to rats, and as there were several holes in the box he carefully mended it with small pieces of wood; but still the bread disappeared, and as one of the neighbours had seen a snake in the priest's domicile the padre concluded that this reptile was the cause of the depredations. To avoid discovery, Lazarillo slept with the key of the chest in his mouth, but one night his breathing caused a whistling sound upon the orifice of the implement, and the old priest, taking this for the hissing of the snake, delivered such a shrewd blow in the direction of the noise as to render the unfortunate Lazarillo an invalid for some considerable time. When he had recovered, the old priest took him by the hand and, leading him into the street, said to him: "Lazarillo my son, thou hast great natural gifts; thou art indeed far too clever for an old man like me, and I assure thee that I do not wish to see thee more. Farewell." Lazarillo, however, was not long in attaching himself to another master, who appeared to be a gentleman of birth and breeding. But now he found that he was in worse straits than ever, as though his master seemed a cavalier of family, he had not a penny in the world, and was entirely dependent for his daily bread upon what the boy could beg from charitably disposed persons. One day the landlord called for the rent, and the gentleman, assuring him that he would fetch it from his banker's, sallied forth and never returned, so that once more the wretched urchin was without a master.