His best customers lived at the castle, about half a mile[8] from the town. This castle belonged to Baron Wodnicki. Alfred Wodnicki was a very rich man--so rich that, although he was a great spendthrift, he could not manage to squander much more than the income accruing from his immense property. He lived very little at the castle, for he was soon bored by the quietness and dullness of country life, so he spent most of his time at Paris or Baden-Baden. He always went to Baden-Baden when his wife was in Paris, and to Paris when she was at Baden-Baden. The husband and wife got on very well together now that they had agreed to live separate lives. Their only child, young Baron Wladislaus, did not live at the castle either, but had been sent to a celebrated Jesuit seminary at Krakau. [Footnote 8: A little more than two English miles.] So the servants had the castle all to themselves. There is an old Polish proverb that runs very much to this effect: "Who is so idle and has so sweet a tooth as a lackey!" The proverb was true in this case at least. Little Schmule always found purchasers for his wares when he had succeeded in dragging his heavy basket up the hill, and so he used often to go there both in summer and winter, although it was a long way for such a little fellow to walk with his burden. It is true that he got as many boxes on the ear as pence, but what did he care for that?--a Jewish child was used to such treatment! So time went on, till Schmule was thirteen years old. Who knows how long he might have gone on hawking his mother's "Fladen" and almond comfits about the country-side, if something had not happened that changed the whole course of his life. One very hot day in August Schmule set out for the castle. The sun was blazing down upon him, and the great heat made him pant as he toiled up the steep ascent leading to the castle; but he almost ran, he was so eager to get to the top--and no wonder. It was between eleven and twelve on a Friday morning, and there was not a penny at home with which to buy the Sabbath dinner. If hunger is hard to bear on an ordinary day, it is much worse on the Sabbath, when there is more time to think of it. As Schmule hastened along, he was far too busy thinking of what had to be bought on his return to Z----, to look about him, or to keep his ears open; and so he never heard a horse galloping up the drive, until it was so close to him that he only saved himself from being ridden over by a hasty spring on one side. The rider was a pale-faced youth, with a fowling-piece at his side, and turned out to be young Baron Wladislaus Wodnicki, who had come home to spend his summer holidays. He laughed heartily when he saw what a fright he had given the Jewish boy, who was still trembling too much to remember to touch his cap. He then turned his horse and rode slowly up to Schmule, till he almost touched him. The latter meanwhile pressed as close as he could to the wall of rock that bordered the drive.