He carried the bread, and all the rest of his things, in a linen knapsack, closing the mouth with an iron chain having a padlock and key. He put in and took out his things himself, using great vigilance, and he kept such a close account that there was not a man in all the world who could have taken so much as a crumb without his knowing it. [Sidenote: Lazaro finds his way into the blind man’s knapsack.] Well, I had to take the lazar’s allowance which he gave me. It was all despatched in less than two mouthfuls. After he had locked the bag and was not looking out, thinking that I was attending to other things, by a little unstitching I often opened one side of the bag and sewed it up again; bleeding the avaricious knapsack not only of bread but of good pieces of bacon and sausage. Thus I watched for convenient times to make up for the infernal wrong that the wicked blind man inflicted on me. [Sidenote: Lazaro’s adroit contrivance with the half “blancas.”] All that I could pilfer and steal I carried in half “blancas.” When they paid him for saying prayers for them, they gave him a whole “blanca.” But as he could not see, I had got it in my mouth, and put a half blanca in its place, before his hand had reached it, quick as he was, so that he only got half-price. The evil-minded blind man complained when he found that it was not a whole “blanca.” He said to me: “How the devil is it that since you have been with me they only give half ‘blancas,’ and before it used to be a whole ‘blanca’ or even a ‘maravedi’ that they gave me?[15] The ill-luck has come with you.” So he shortened up the prayers and did not give them more than half, ordering me to remind him to stop by pulling his sleeve. Then he began to cry out that they had called for such and such a prayer from him, such as he used to recite, and that he had given it. [15] The copper _maravedi_ was a coin the value of which varied. It may be taken as a penny. The _blanca_ was so called from the whiteness of the metal of which it was made. In the time of Alonso XI. there were three blancas to the maravedi. From 1497 the maravedi was worth two blancas. The great dictionary of the Spanish Academy quotes _Lazarillo de Tormes_ as the authority for the value of the blanca and half blanca, or farthing.