_Dionysius_.—For want of a better employment, _Kyrie_, {264a} I have adopted this most unprofitable and despised one. Oft have I regretted not having been bred up as a shoemaker, or having learnt in my youth some other useful handicraft, for gladly would I follow it now. Such, at least, would procure me the respect of my fellow-creatures, inasmuch as they needed me; but now all avoid me and look upon me with contempt; for what have I to offer in this place that any one cares about? Books in Seville! where no one reads, or at least nothing but new romances, translated from the French, and obscenity. Books! Would I were a gypsy and could trim donkeys, for then I were at least independent and were more respected than I am at present. _Myself_.—Of what kind of books does your stock-in-trade consist? _Dionysius_.—Of those not likely to suit the Seville market, _Kyrie_; books of sterling and intrinsic value; many of them in ancient Greek, which I picked up upon the dissolution of the convents, when the contents of the libraries were hurled into the courtyards, and there sold by the _arroba_. I thought at first that I was about to make a fortune, and in fact my books would be so in any other place; but here I have offered an Elzevir {264b} for half a dollar in vain. I should starve were it not for the strangers who occasionally purchase of me. _Myself_.—Seville is a large cathedral city, abounding with priests and canons; surely some of these occasionally visit you to make purchases of classic works and books connected with ecclesiastical literature.