in at the usual price. He made it known in the town that
he would pay the passage and board and give two thousand piastres to any
honest man who would make the voyage with him, upon condition that this
man was the most dissatisfied with his state, and the most unfortunate
in the whole province.

Such a crowd of candidates presented themselves that a fleet of ships
could hardly have held them. Candide being desirous of selecting from
among the best, marked out about one-twentieth of them who seemed to be
sociable men, and who all pretended to merit his preference. He
assembled them at his inn, and gave them a supper on condition that each
took an oath to relate his history faithfully, promising to choose him
who appeared to be most justly discontented with his state, and to
bestow some presents upon the rest.

They sat until four o'clock in the morning. Candide, in listening to all
their adventures, was reminded of what the old woman had said to him in
their voyage to Buenos Ayres, and of her wager that there was not a
person on board the ship but had met with very great misfortunes. He
dreamed of Pangloss at every adventure told to him.

"This Pangloss," said he, "would be puzzled to demonstrate his system. I
wish that he were here. Certainly, if all things are good, it is in El
Dorado and not in the rest of the world."

At length he made choice of a poor man of letters, who had worked ten
years for the booksellers of Amsterdam. He judged that there was not in
the whole world a trade which could disgust one more.

This philosopher was an honest man; but he had been robbed by his wife,
beaten by his son, and abandoned by his daughter who got a Portuguese to
run away with her. He had just been deprived of a small employment, on
which he subsisted; and he was persecuted by the preachers of Surinam,
who took him for a Socinian. We must allow that the others were at least
as wretched as he; but Candide hoped that the philosopher would
entertain him during the voyage. All the other candidates complained
that Candide had done them great injustice; but he appeased them by
giving one hundred piastres to each.

XX

WHAT HAPPENED AT SEA TO CANDIDE AND MARTIN.

The old philosopher, whose name was Martin, embarked then with Candide
for Bordeaux. They had both seen and suffered a great deal; and if the
vessel had sailed from Surinam to Japan, by the Cape of Good Hope, the
subject of moral and natural evil would have