He soon made friends with the servants of the palace: he mended the footmen's shoes, charging them less, and doing the work better, than any one else could have done; and next, one by one, the women brought out their slippers or sandals; and for each he had a smile and a compliment, or a piece of wit, in readiness: sometimes a moral reflection, if the beauties of the dame he addressed had become faded by years, and if he had observed her kissing with greater fervour the little images of saints brought round from the churches, or more constant in her attendance at mass than others. If the lady was young, with sparkling black eyes, he knew exactly how to bestow his praise, and, at all events, their feet were a sure subject for compliment. Considering the small sums he charged, they could not but wait to pay him with a little chat, while he was putting the last stitch or so into his work; for, come when they would, so it was that a few minutes' work always remained to be completed; and, as they did not complain, he did not correct his fault, being thus enabled, in a quiet, confidential way, to learn all that was going forward in the establishment. What he learned will be detailed in the course of this history. We have said that he had taken up his abode in a recess in the wall of a house opposite the palace; but we do not wish to describe the house as facing the palace, for it looked into a street running at right angles to it; the recess being part of a doorway in the garden-wall, now stopped up. This house was inhabited by a very rich merchant and his family, most exemplary Catholics, who set a lesson of piety to the community by their regular observance of all the ordinances of the Church, and by their fastings and alms: yet, notwithstanding this, people dared to point the finger of scorn at them, stigmatising them as Jews and heretics, and longing to show their zeal for religion by offering them up in that grateful sacrifice to the benign power, the most holy Auto da Fe--thus to become sharers in their hoarded riches. Whatever were their own private notions regarding the established faith, they certainly suffered under the inabilities of the New Christians, as those were called who had Jewish or even Moorish blood in their veins, the term having origin from the following cause. At an early period in Lusitanian history, we find that the Jews had collected in great numbers in Portugal, and down to the reign of John the First they had their synagogues and rabbins; indeed, in no country in Europe did they enjoy greater prosperity, their wealth adding much to the power of the kingdom.