“He has improved—­vastly improved,” said the uncle.  “Indeed, when first I took him with me, while he was still weak, and moreover much overcome by sea-sickness, while all was strange to him, and he was relieved by not finding himself treated as an outcast, I verily thought him meeker than other urchins, and that the outcry against him was unmerited.  But no sooner had we got to Berlin, and while I was as yet too busy to provide either masters or occupations for my young gentleman, than he did indeed make me feel that I had charge of a young imp, and that if I did not watch the better, it might be a case of war with his Spanish Majesty.  For would you believe it, his envoy’s gardens joined ours, and what must my young master do, but sit atop of our wall, making grimaces at the dons and donnas as they paced the walks, and pelting them from time to time with walnuts.  Well, I was mindful of your counsel, and did not flog him, nor let my chaplain do so, though I know the good man’s fingers itched to be at him; but I reasoned with him on the harm he was doing me, and would you believe it, the poor lad burst into tears, and implored me to give him something to do, to save him from his own spirit.  I set him to write out and translate a long roll of Latin despatches sent up by that pedant Court in Hungary, and I declare to you I had no more trouble with him till next he was left idle.  I gave him tutors, and he studied with fervour, and made progress at which they were amazed.  He learnt the High Dutch faster than any other of my people, and could soon jabber away in it with the best of the Elector’s folk, and I began to think I had a nephew who would do me no small credit.  I sent him to perfect his studies at Leyden, but shall I confess it to you? it was to find that no master nor discipline could keep him out of the riotings and quarrels of the worse sort of students.  Nay, I found him laid by with a rapier thrust in the side from a duel, for no better cause than biting his thumb at a Scots law student in chapel, his apology being that to sit through a Dutch sermon drove him crazy.  ’Tis not that he is not trustworthy.  Find employment for the restless demon that is in him, and all is well with him; moreover, he is full of wit and humour, and beguiles a long journey or tedious evening at an inn better than any comrade I ever knew, extracting mirth from all around, even the very discomforts, and searching to the quick all that is to be seen.  But if left to himself, the restless demon that preys on him is sure to set him to something incalculable.  At Turin it set him to scraping acquaintance with a Capuchin friar, a dirty rogue whom I would have kept on the opposite side of the street.  That was his graver mood; but what more must he do, but borrow or steal, I know not how, the ghastly robes of the Confraternity of Death—­the white garb and peaked cap with two holes for the eyes, wherewith men of all degrees disguise themselves while