Gil Blas, Alain-René Lesage [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗

and then communicated my project of running away from Don Abel just before the ship was to sail, begging to know what he thought of the plan.

“My bluff adviser puckered his eyebrows while he listened, and fiddled with his fingers about his whiskers: then, blaming my master very seriously, ‘My little hero,’ said he, ‘you are eternally disgraced, can never show your face again, if you sit down quietly with so paltry a satisfaction as what you propose. To let Don Abel go off by himself would be a poor revenge for wrongs like yours; the punishment should be proportioned to his crime. Let us fine him to the full amount of his purse and effects, which we will share like brothers after he is gone.’ Now, it is to be noted that though thieving fell in very naturally with the bent of my genius, the proposal rather startled me, as the robbery was upon a large scale for so young an apprentice.

“And yet the arch deceiver of my innocence found the means of working me up to the perpetration, so that the result of our enterprise was as follows: This glorious ruffian, a tall, brawny fellow, came in the evening about twilight to our lodging. I showed my master’s travelling trunk ready packed, and asked him whether he could carry so heavy a load upon his shoulders. ‘So heavy as that!’ said he: ‘show me where a transfer of property is to be made in my favor, and I could run with Noah’s ark to the top of Mount Ararat.’ To prove his words, he felt the trunk, flung it carelessly over his back, and scampered downstairs. I followed nimbly; and we had just got to the street door, when Don Abel, brought home in the nick of time by the ascendency of his lucky stars, stood like an apparition, to appall our guilty souls.

“ ‘Whither are you going with that trunk?’ said he. I was so taken by surprise, that my assurance failed me; and broad-shoulders, finding that he had drawn a blank in the lottery, threw down his booty, and took to his heels, rather than be troubled for an explanation. ‘Once more, whither are you going with that trunk?’ said my master. ‘Sir,’ answered I, with all the honest simplicity of a criminal pleading in arrest of judgment, ‘I was going to put it on board the vessel, that we might have the less to do tomorrow, before we embark ourselves.’

“ ‘Indeed! Then you know,’ retorted he, ‘in what ship I have taken my passage?’

“ ‘No, sir,’ replied I; ‘but those who can talk Latin may always find their way to Rome: I should have inquired at the port, and somebody would have informed me.’ At this explanation, which left his opinion where it found it, he darted a furious glance at me. I thought, for all the world, he was going to cuff me again about the head. ‘Who ordered you,’ cried he, ‘to take my trunk out of this house?’

“ ‘You, your own self,’ said I. ‘Can you possibly have forgotten how you rated me but a few days ago? Did not you tell me, with a flea in my ear, that you would have me prevent your wants, and do beforehand from my own head whatever your service might require? Now, not to be threshed a second time for want of forethought, I was seeing your trunk safe and soon enough on board.’ On this the gamester, finding that I had cut my teeth of wisdom sooner than suited his purpose, turned me off very coolly, saying, ‘Go about your business, Master Scipio, and speed as you may deserve. I do not like to play with folks who are in the habit of revoking. Get out of my sight, or I shall set your solfeggio in a crying key.’

“I spared him the trouble of telling me to go twice. Off I shot like an arrow, for fear he should unfledge me by taking away my livery. When distant enough to slacken my pace, I walked along the streets, musing whither I might betake myself for a night’s lodging, with only two reals in my pocket. The gate of the archbishop’s palace at length stared me in the face; and, as his grace’s supper was then dressing, a savory odor exhaled from the kitchens, impregnating the gale with soup and sauce for a mile round. Ods haricots and cutlets! thought I; it would be no hard matter for me to dispense with one of those little side dishes, which will be of no use to the archbishop but to make out the figure of his table: nay, I would be contented only just to dip in my four fingers and thumb, and then to sup like a bear upon suckings. But how to accomplish it! Is there no way of bringing these choice morsels to a better test than that of smell? And why not? Hunger, they say, will break through stone walls. On this idea did I set my wits to work; and, by dint of conning over the subject, a stratagem struck me, which set my lungs as well as appetite in motion, just as the old carpenter kept bawling, ‘I have found it,’ like a madman, when he had hit the right nail of his proposition on the head. I ran into the court of the palace, and made the best of my way to the kitchens, calling out with all my might, ‘Help! help!’ as if some assassin had been at my heels.

“At my reiterated cries, Master Diego, the archbishop’s cook, ran with three or four kitchen drudges to learn what was the matter, and seeing only me, asked why I roared so loud. ‘Ah, good sir,’ answered I, with every token of exquisite distress, ‘for mercy’s sake and for St. Polycarp’s, save me, I beseech you, from the fury of a blusterer, who swears he will kill me.’

“ ‘But where is this disturber of the