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Updated: June 28, 2025
"You would have been duped, if you had gone to sell this to the Jew. It is well it has fallen into my hands. How came you by it?" Piedro answered that he had found it in the street. "Go your ways home, then," said his father; "it is safe with me. Concern yourself no more about it."
In addition to the two voyages of Cada Mosto himself, there is a third voyage included in the present chapter, performed by Piedro de Cintra to the same coast, the narrative of which was communicated to Cada Mosto by one who had accompanied Cintra, and had been clerk to Cada Mosto in the two former voyages. Astley, Col. of Voy. and Trav. Clarke, Prog. of Marit. Disc.
Piedro saw that his father was in a passion, and knew that he was beaten because he was found out to be a rogue, rather than for being one. He recollected perfectly that his father once said to him: "Let everyone take care of his own grapes."
"And you have never considered, then," said Francisco, "that all these people will, one after another, find you out in time?" "Ay, in time; but it will be some time first. There are a great many of them, enough to last me all the summer, if I lose a customer a day," said Piedro. "And next summer," observed Francisco, "what will you do?"
"There's nothing like measuring, I find, indeed," replied Carlo, as he looked closely at the end of his rule, which, since he spoke last, he had put into the cube to take its depth in the inside. "This is not as deep by a quarter of an inch, Signor Piedro, measured within as it is measured without."
Arthur went on to say something in bad Italian about the excellence of an English trial by jury, which Carlo was too much enraged to hear, but to which Francisco paid attention, and turning to Piedro, he asked him if he was willing to be judged by twelve of his equals?
This was a proverb which Piedro had frequently heard from his father, and to which he most willingly trusted, because it gave him less trouble to fancy himself fortunate than to make himself wise. "Come here, child," said his father to him, when he returned home after the preceding conversation with the gardener; "how old are you, my boy? twelve years old, is not it?"
On the contrary, he was hardened to the sense of shame by the loss of reputation. All the little merchants were spectators of this scene, and heard his father's words: "You ARE a rogue, and the worst of rogues, who scruples not to cheat his own father." These words were long remembered, and long did Piedro feel their effects.
Indeed it was scarcely reasonable to expect that a boy who had been educated to think that he might cheat every customer he could in the way of trade, should be afterwards scrupulously honest in his conduct towards the father whose proverbs encouraged his childhood in cunning. Piedro writhed with bodily pain as he left the market after his drubbing, but his mind was not in the least amended.
No one had left the company; the piazza was cleared, and searched in vain. "The hat has vanished by magic," said Dominicho. "Yes, and by the same magic a statue moves," cried Carlo, pointing to a figure standing in a niche, which had hitherto escaped observation. The face was so much in the shade, that Carlo did not at first perceive that the statue was Piedro.
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