"Now the more my father's riches increased, the more flatterers and parasites he had round him, all which did praise my fine capacities for study, but said no word of all my other faults or at least would excuse them, seeing well that any that did not so could never stand well with my father and mother. And so had they more pleasure in their son than ever had a tomtit that has reared a young cuckoo. So they hired for me a special tutor, and sent me with him to Liège, more to learn foreign tongues than to study: for I was to be no theologian, but a trader. He, moreover, had his orders not to be hard with me, lest that should breed in me a fearful and servile spirit. He was to allow me freely to consort with the students, lest I might become shamefaced, and must remember that 'twas to make, not a monk, but a man of the world of me, one that should know the difference between black and white. "But my said tutor needed no such instruction, being of himself given to all manner of knaveries. And how could he forbid me such or rebuke me for my little faults when he himself committed greater? To wine and women was he by nature most inclined, but I to wrestling and fighting: so did I prowl about the streets at night with him and his likes and learned of him in brief space more lechery than Latin. But as to my studies, therein I could rely on a good memory and a keen wit, and was therefore the more careless, but for the rest I was sunk in all manner of vice, roguery, and wantonness: and already was my conscience so wide that one could have driven a waggon and horses through it. I heeded nothing if I could but read Berni or Burchiello or Aretine during the sermon in church: nor did I hear any part of the service with greater joy than when 'twas said 'Ite missa est.'