right place, that he could not help wagging his under-hung jaw in a paroxysm of humor-stricken ecstasy, and laughing till he cried again. Catalina's double cast in the drama delighted him exceedingly; her sometimes playing the niece and sometimes personating the granddaughter seemed to tickle his fancy more than anything; nor was he altogether inattentive to the appearance which the Duke of Lerma made in this undignified farce of state. When I had finished my story, the count gave me leave to depart, with an assurance that on the next day he would not fail to make trial of my talents for business. I ran immediately to the family hotel of Zuniga, to thank Don Balthasar for his good offices, and to acquaint my friend Joseph with the favorable dispositions of the prime minister, and my brilliant prospects in consequence. _CHAPTER V._ _THE PRIVATE CONVERSATION OF GIL BLAS WITH NAVARRO, AND HIS FIRST EMPLOYMENT IN THE SERVICE OF THE COUNT D'OLIVAREZ._ As soon as I got to the ear of Joseph, I told him, with much trepidation of spirits, what a world of topics I had to deposit in his private ear. He took me where we might be alone, when I asked him, after having communicated a key to the whole transaction up to the present time, what he thought of the business as it stood. I think, answered he, that you are in a fair way to make an enormous fortune. Everything turns out according to your wishes: you have made yourself acceptable to the prime minister; and what must be taken for something in the account, I can render you the same service as my uncle Melchior de la Ronda, when you attached yourself to the archiepiscopal establishment of Grenada. He spared you the trouble of finding out the weak side of that prelate and his principal officers, by discovering their different characters to you; and it is my purpose, after his example, to bring you perfectly acquainted with the count, his lady countess, and their only daughter, Donna Maria de Guzman.