d looked very sad. Seeing me looking
at him, he accosted me, and humbly asked for alms, shewing me a document
authorizing him to beg, and a passport stating he had left Madrid six
weeks before. He came from Parma, and was named Costa. When I saw Parma
my national prejudice spoke in his favour, and I asked him what
misfortune had reduced him to beggary.

"Only lack of money to return to my native country," said he.

"What were you doing at Madrid, and why did you leave?"

"I was there four years as valet to Dr. Pistoria, physician to the King
of Spain, but on my health failing I left him. Here is a certificate
which will shew you that I gave satisfaction."

"What can you do?"

"I write a good hand, I can assist a gentleman as his secretary, and I
intend being a scribe when I get home. Here are some verses I copied
yesterday."

"You write well; but can you write correctly without a book?"

"I can write from dictation in French, Latin, and Spanish."

"Correctly?"

"Yes, sir, if the dictation is done properly, for it is the business of
the one who dictates to see that everything is correct."

I saw that Master Gaetan Costa was an ignoramus, but in spite of that I
took him to my room and told Le Duc to address him in Spanish. He
answered well enough, but on my dictating to him in Italian and French I
found he had not the remotest ideas on orthography.

"But you can't write," said I to him. However, I saw he was mortified at
this, and I consoled him by saying that I would take him to his own
country at my expense. He kissed my hand, and assured me that I should
find a faithful servant in him.

This young fellow took my fancy by his originality; he had probably
assumed it to distinguish himself from the blockheads amongst whom he had
hitherto lived, and now used it in perfect good faith with everybody. He
thought that the art of a scribe solely consisted in possessing a good
hand, and that the fairest writer would be the best scribe. He said as
much while he was examining a paper I had written, and as my writing was
not as legible as his he tacitly told me I was his inferior, and that I
should therefore treat him with some degree of respect. I laughed at this
fad, and, not thinking him incorrigible I took him into my service. If it
had not been for that odd notion of his I should probably have merely
given him a louis, and no more. He said that spelling was of no
consequence, as those who knew how to spell could