“What can you do?”

“I write a good hand, I can assist a gentleman as his secretary, and I intend being a scribe when I get home.  Here are some verses I copied yesterday.”

“You write well; but can you write correctly without a book?”

“I can write from dictation in French, Latin, and Spanish.”

“Correctly?”

“Yes, sir, if the dictation is done properly, for it is the business of the one who dictates to see that everything is correct.”

I saw that Master Gaetan Costa was an ignoramus, but in spite of that I took him to my room and told Le Duc to address him in Spanish.  He answered well enough, but on my dictating to him in Italian and French I found he had not the remotest ideas on orthography.

“But you can’t write,” said I to him.  However, I saw he was mortified at this, and I consoled him by saying that I would take him to his own country at my expense.  He kissed my hand, and assured me that I should find a faithful servant in him.

This young fellow took my fancy by his originality; he had probably assumed it to distinguish himself from the blockheads amongst whom he had hitherto lived, and now used it in perfect good faith with everybody.  He thought that the art of a scribe solely consisted in possessing a good hand, and that the fairest writer would be the best scribe.  He said as much while he was examining a paper I had written, and as my writing was not as legible as his he tacitly told me I was his inferior, and that I should therefore treat him with some degree of respect.  I laughed at this fad, and, not thinking him incorrigible I took him into my service.  If it had not been for that odd notion of his I should probably have merely given him a louis, and no more.  He said that spelling was of no consequence, as those who knew how to spell could easily guess the words, while those who did not know were unable to pick out the mistakes.  I laughed, but as I said nothing he thought the laugh signified approval.  In the dictation I gave him the Council of Trent happened to occur.  According to his system he wrote Trent by a three and a nought.  I burst out laughing; but he was not in the least put out, only remarking that the pronunciation being the same it was of no consequence how the word was spelt.  In point of fact this lad was a fool solely through his intelligence, matched with ignorance and unbounded self-confidence.  I was pleased with his originality and kept him, and was thus the greater fool of the two, as the reader will see.

I left Avignon next day, and went straight to Marseilles, not troubling to stop at Aix.  I halted at the “Treize Cantons,” wishing to stay for a week at least in this ancient colony of the Phocaeans, and to do as I liked there.  With this idea I took no letter of introduction; I had plenty of money, and needed nobody’s help.  I told my landlord to give me a choice fish dinner in my own room, as I was aware that the fish in those parts is better than anywhere else.