easant disappointment of flattering dreams! This
ravenous appetite would at last have weakened me to death, had I not made
up my mind to pounce upon, and to swallow, every kind of eatables I could
find, whenever I was certain of not being seen.

Necessity begets ingenuity. I had spied in a cupboard of the kitchen some
fifty red herrings; I devoured them all one after the other, as well as
all the sausages which were hanging in the chimney to be smoked; and in
order to accomplish those feats without being detected, I was in the
habit of getting up at night and of undertaking my foraging expeditions
under the friendly veil of darkness. Every new-laid egg I could discover
in the poultry-yard, quite warm and scarcely dropped by the hen, was a
most delicious treat. I would even go as far as the kitchen of the
schoolmaster in the hope of pilfering something to eat.

The Sclavonian woman, in despair at being unable to catch the thieves,
turned away servant after servant. But, in spite of all my expeditions,
as I could not always find something to steal, I was as thin as a walking
skeleton.

My progress at school was so rapid during four or five months that the
master promoted me to the rank of dux. My province was to examine the
lessons of my thirty school-fellows, to correct their mistakes and report
to the master with whatever note of blame or of approval I thought they
deserved; but my strictness did not last long, for idle boys soon found
out the way to enlist my sympathy. When their Latin lesson was full of
mistakes, they would buy me off with cutlets and roast chickens; they
even gave me money. These proceedings excited my covetousness, or,
rather, my gluttony, and, not satisfied with levying a tax upon the
ignorant, I became a tyrant, and I refused well-merited approbation to
all those who declined paying the contribution I demanded. At last,
unable to bear my injustice any longer, the boys accused me, and the
master, seeing me convicted of extortion, removed me from my exalted
position. I would very likely have fared badly after my dismissal, had
not Fate decided to put an end to my cruel apprenticeship.

Doctor Gozzi, who was attached to me, called me privately one day into
his study, and asked me whether I would feel disposed to carry out the
advice he would give me in order to bring about my removal from the house
of the Sclavonian woman, and my admission in his own family. Finding me
delighted at such an offer,