ter's worldly-wise sayings, in which selfishness was always
praised as the highest virtue, often seemed very puzzling to the boy,
yet many of them were impressed on his young soul. He followed the sick
man's advice the very next morning, and he had no cause to regret it,
for Moor treated him even more kindly than before.

Pellicanus intended to part from the travellers at Avignon, to go to
Marseilles, and from there by ship to Savona, but before he reached the
old city of the popes, he grew so feeble, that Moor scarcely hoped to
bring him alive to the goal of his journey.

The little man's body seemed to continually grow smaller, and his head
larger, while his hollow, livid cheeks looked as if a rose-leaf adorned
the centre of each.

He often told his travelling-companions about his former life.

He had originally been destined for the ecclesiastical profession, but
though he surpassed all the other pupils in the school, he was deprived
of the hope of ever becoming a priest, for the Church wants no cripples.
He was the child of poor people, and had been obliged to fight his way
through his career as a student, with great difficulty.

"How shabby the broad top of my cap often was!" he said. "I was so much
ashamed of it. I am so small. Dear me, anybody could see my head, and
could not help noticing all the worn places in the velvet, if he cast
his eyes down. How often have I sat beside the kitchen of a cook-shop,
and seasoned dry bread with the smell of roast meat. Often too my
poodledog went out and stole a sausage for me from the butcher."

At other times the little fellow had fared better; then, sitting in the
taverns, he had given free-play to his wit, and imposed no constraint on
his sharp tongue.

Once he had been invited by a former boon-companion, to accompany him to
his ancestral castle, to cheer his sick father; and so it happened
that he became a buffoon, wandered from one great lord to another, and
finally entered the elector's service.

He liked to pretend that he despised the world and hated men, but this
assertion could not be taken literally, and was to be regarded in a
general, rather than a special sense, for every beautiful thing in the
world kindled eager enthusiasm in his heart, and he remained kindly
disposed towards individuals to the end.

When Moor once charged him with this, he said, smiling:

"What would you have? Whoever condemns, feels himself superior to the
person upon whom he sit