These greedy fellows send not men like us to so healthful a place till they be well assured they can help us no more, or else find us pigeons they can pluck no longer: and if the truth must be confessed, he that once deals with them, and of whom they know that he has money, must pay them only to this end, that they keep him sick." And much more evil had these two to say of their doctors, but I care not to tell it all: otherwise might the gentlemen of that profession take it amiss and some time or other give me a dose that should purge my soul out of my body. Nay, I do but mention it for this cause, because this second patient, in giving thanks to God that He had given him no more wealth, so comforted me that I banished clean out of my mind all vexations and heavy thoughts that had assailed me on the score of money: and I did resolve to strive no more for honour nor gold nor for aught else that the world loveth. Yea, I determined to be a philosopher and to devote myself to a godly life, and in especial to lament mine own impenitence and to endeavour myself, like my dear departed father, to ascend to the highest degree of piety. _Chap. xii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS JOURNEYED WITH THE SYLPHS TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH Now this desire to visit the Mummelsee increased with me when I learned from my foster-father that he had been there and knew the way thither; but when he heard that I likewise would go, "And what will ye gain," says he, "by going thither? My son with his old dad will see naught else but the picture of a pond lying in the midst of a great wood, and when he hath paid for his present taste with sore distaste, he will have naught but repentance and weary feet (for a man can hardly come to the place by riding) and the way back instead of the way thither. Nor should ever any man have had me to go thither had I not been forced to flee there when Doctor Daniel (by which he meant Duc d'Anguin[41]) marched with his troops down through the country to Philippsburg." Yet my curiosity would not be turned aside by his dissuasion, but I got me a fellow that should guide me thither; so my father, seeing my fixed intent, said, since the oat-crop was gathered in, and there was neither hoeing nor reaping to be done on the farm, he would even go with me and shew the way. For he loved me so that he would fain not let me out of his sight, and since all the people of the country believed I was his true-born son, he was proud of me; and so behaved to me and to all others as a poor man might well do in respect of a son whom good fortune, without his own help and assistance, had turned into a fine gentleman.