_Scip._ Ay, but I don't speak evil of any one.

_Berg._ You now convince me of the truth of what I have often heard say,
that a person of a malicious tongue will utter enough to blast ten
families, and calumniate twenty good men; and if he is taken to task for
it, he will reply that he said nothing; or, if he did, he meant nothing
by it, and would not have said it if he had thought any one would take
it amiss. In truth, Scipio, one had need of much wisdom and wariness to
be able to entertain a conversation for two hours, without approaching
the confines of evil speaking. In my own case, for instance, brute as I
am, I see that with every fourth phrase I utter, words full of malice
and detraction come to my tongue like flies to wine. I therefore say
again that doing and speaking evil are things we inherit from our first
parents, and suck in with our mother's milk. This is manifest in the
fact, that hardly is a boy out of swaddling clothes before he lifts his
hand to take vengeance upon those by whom he thinks himself offended;
and the first words he articulates are to call his nurse or his mother a
jade.

_Scip._ That is true. I confess my error, and beg you will forgive it,
as I have forgiven you so many. Let us pitch ill-nature into the sea--as
the boys say--and henceforth backbite no more. Go on with your story.
You were talking of the grand style in which the sons of your master the
merchant went to the college of the Company of Jesus.

_Berg._ I will go on then; and though I hold it a sufficient thing to
abstain from ill-natured remarks, yet I propose to use a remedy, which I
am told was employed by a great swearer, who repenting of his bad habit,
made it a practice to pinch his arm, or kiss the ground as penance,
whenever an oath escaped him; but he continued to swear for all that. In
like manner, whenever I act contrary to the precept you have given me
against evil speaking, and contrary to my own intention to abstain from
that practice, I will bite the tip of my tongue, so that the smart may
remind me of my fault, and hinder me from relapsing into it.

_Scip._ If that is the remedy you mean to use, I expect that you will
have to bite your tongue so often, that there will be none of it left,
and it will be put beyond the possibility of offending.

_Berg._ At least I will do my best; may heaven make up my deficiencies.
Well, to resume: one day my master's sons left a note-book in the
court-yard where I was; and