After supper we generally sat down to play; I soon learned the games of Quince, one and thirty, quinola and primera, with a thousand tricks on the cards. I had so happy a knack, and my disposition was so well suited to this science, that I made visible progress under these excellent masters. Little as I was, I felt desirous to imitate some of my companions, who, lest they should be punished as vagrants, posted themselves with baskets in the different markets, offering the citizens to carry home for them the provisions they might purchase. This employment appeared rather laborious to me at first, but I soon got so well accustomed to it, that I thought no man’s lot preferable to my own. “How charming,” thought I, “to live thus in plenty, without being obliged to use either needle or thread, the hammer or the thimble; nothing but a basket and a little industry being necessary for subsistence! The life of a beggar is a delicacy without bone, an uninterrupted stream of pleasure, an employment exempt from trouble and vexation. How void of sense must my ancestors have been to have taken so much pains to live in wretchedness! In how many perplexities have they been involved for the sake of supporting their commerce and reputation! O absurd honour of this world, thou art but a millstone to sink such fools as consent to be burdened with thee!” One day as I was carrying home a quarter of mutton in my basket for an honest shoemaker who walked before me, I picked up a paper which I perceived lying in the street, containing some verses of an old ballad, which I began to read and sing to myself. The shoe-maker, surprised to hear me, said with a smile: “what, you ill-looking little dog, can you read?” “And write too,” answered I. “Is it possible?” cried he, much astonished. “If you will teach me merely to sign my name, I will pay you well for your trouble.” I asked of what possible use the knowing how to sign his name only could be to him, and he told me that having obtained a good situation through the influence of a certain person, whom he named, whose family he had supplied with shoes gratis, he should be glad to be able to sign his name when necessary, that he might not be obliged to confess that he could not write. As soon as we entered his house he caused pen, ink, and paper to be brought, and I commenced my occupation of writing-master, showing my scholar how to hold his pen, and guiding his hand. I then made him form the letters that composed his name so many times over, that he fancied he had already acquired the elements of the art of writing. After having scribbled over and blotted five or six sheets of paper, he was so well satisfied, that he made me try on a pair of new shoes, which fitted as if they had been made for me, and which he presented me with: I then took leave of him, assuring him, that whenever I wanted a new pair of shoes, I would call and give some further lessons to make him quite perfect in his writing. CHAP. XII.