One day when my wretched master was out, a locksmith came to the door by chance. I thought that he was an angel sent to me by the hand of God, in the dress of a workman. He asked me whether I had any work for him to do. Inspired by the Holy Spirit I replied: “Uncle! I have lost a key, and I fear that my master will whip me. Kindly see if there are any on your bunch that will fit the lock, and I will pay you for it.” [Sidenote: The chest opened.] The angelic locksmith began to try his keys, and soon the chest was opened, and I beheld the Lord’s gift in the form of bread. “I have no money,” I said, “to give you for the key, but take what you like in payment.” He took one of the loaves that looked the best, and went away quite satisfied, leaving the key with me. [Sidenote: Lazaro is happy until the clergyman begins to smell a rat.] I did not touch anything, at the moment, because I did not feel the need. My wretched master came back, and, as God willed it, he did not look into the trunk which that angel had opened. But next day, when he had gone out, I opened my bread paradise and took a loaf between the hands and teeth. In two _credos_ I made it invisible. Not forgetting the open chest, I rejoiced to think that, with this remedy, my life would be less miserable. Thus I was happy with him for two days, but it was not destined that this should continue. [Sidenote: The clergyman counts the loaves of bread.] For on the third day, at the very time that I was dying of hunger, he was to be seen at our chest, counting and recounting the loaves. I dissimulated, and, in my secret prayers and devotions, I implored that he might be blinded. After he had been counting for a long time, he said: “If I did not keep such an exact account I should think that some loaves have been taken from this chest. From this day I shall have a more accurate account. There are now nine loaves and part of another.” “New misfortunes have come,” I said to myself, and I felt that my stomach would soon be in the same wretched state as before. When the priest went out, I opened the chest as some consolation, and when I saw the bread I began to worship it, giving it a thousand kisses. But I did not pass that day so happily as the day before. As my hunger increased, so did my longing for more bread. At length God, who helps the afflicted, showed me a remedy. I said to myself: “This chest is old, and broken in some parts, though the holes are very small. The belief might be suggested that rats had got through these holes and had eaten some of the bread.” It would not do to eat wholesale, but I began to crumble the bread over some not very valuable cloth, taking some and leaving some, and thus I got a meal. When the priest came to examine the damage, he did not doubt that it had been done by the rats, because it seemed to be done just in the way that rats would do it. He looked over the chest from one end to the other, and saw the holes by which the rats might have entered.