It was to relieve your mind upon that subject, said I to Signor Manuel, that I have taken the liberty of stopping you in the street. Fabricio is settled at Madrid, where he employs himself in publishing miscellanies and collections. What do you mean by miscellanies and collections? replied he. I mean, resumed I, that he writes in verse and prose, from epic poems and the highest branches of philosophy, down to plays, novels, epigrams, and riddles. In short, he is a lad of universal genius, and most exemplary benevolence; sometimes modestly taking to himself the credit of his own compositions, and sometimes lending out his talents to the literary ambition of those noblemen who write for their own amusement, but wish their names to be concealed, except from a chosen circle. By traffic like this, he sits at the very first tables. But how does he sit at his own? said the director; upon what terms does he live with his baker? Not quite so confidentially as with people of fashion, answered I; for, between ourselves, I take him to be quite as much out at elbows as ever Job was. More bonds and judgments against him than ever Job had, take my word for it! replied Ordonnez. Let him lick the spittle of his titled friends and patrons, till his stomach heaves at the nauseating saliva; his printed dedications and his oral flattery, in spite of all the cringing and all the toad-eating which constitute the stock in trade of his profession, with all the profits of his works, whether by subscription or ordinary publication, will not bring grist enough to his mill to keep hunger from the door. Mind if what I say does not turn out to be true! He will come to the dogs at last.