But the young lad soon frittered it away, for he was the very opposite of the old fellow, who, returning from the fields to his house, picked up, now here, now there, many a little stick of wood left right and left, saying, conscientiously, that one should never come home empty handed.  Thus he warmed himself in the winter at the expense of the careless; and he did well.  Everyone recognised what a good example this was for the country, since a year before his death no one left a morsel of wood on the road; he had compelled the most dissipated to be thrifty and orderly.  But his son made ducks and drakes of everything, and did not follow his wise example.  The father had predicted the thing.  From the boy’s earliest youth, when the good Tryballot set him to watch the birds who came to eat the peas, beans, and the grain, and to drive the thieves away, above all, the jays, who spoiled everything, he would study their habits, and took delight in watching with what grace they came and went, flew off loaded, and returned, watching with a quick eye the snares and nets; and he would laugh heartily at their cleverness in avoiding them.  Tryballot senior went into a passion when he found his grain considerably less in a measure.  But although he pulled his son’s ears whenever he caught him idling and trifling under a nut tree, the little rascal did not alter his conduct, but continued to study the habits of the blackbirds, sparrows, and other intelligent marauders.  One day his father told him that he would be wise to model himself after them, for that if he continued this kind of life, he would be compelled in his old age like them, to pilfer, and like them, would be pursued by justice.  This came true; for, as has before been stated, he dissipated in a few days the crowns which his careful father had acquired in a life-time.  He dealt with men as he did with the sparrows, letting everyone put a hand in his pocket, and contemplating the grace and polite demeanour of those who assisted to empty it.  The end of his wealth was thus soon reached.  When the devil had the empty money bag to himself, Tryballot did not appear at all cut up, saying, that he “did not wish to damn himself for this world’s goods, and that he had studied philosophy in the school of the birds.”

After having thoroughly enjoyed himself, of all his goods, there only remained to him a goblet bought at Landict, and three dice, quite sufficient furniture for drinking and gambling, so that he went about without being encumbered, as are the great, with chariots, carpets, dripping pans, and an infinite number of varlets.  Tryballot wished to see his good friends, but they no longer knew him, which fact gave him leave no longer to recognise anyone.  Seeing this, he determined to choose a profession in which there was nothing to do and plenty to gain.  Thinking this over, he remembered the indulgences of the blackbirds and the sparrows.  Then the good Tryballot selected for his profession that of begging money at people’s