And the constable and notary laughed out loud,and said,"This sort of information would be good enough to pay off your debt even if it was bigger."
The neighbor ladies were there,and they said:"Gentlemen,this is just an innocent boy,and he's only been with that squire a few days.He doesn't know any more about him than you do.Besides,the poor little fellow has been coming to our house,and we've given him what we could to eat out of charity,and at night he's gone to his master's place to sleep."
When they saw that I was innocent,they let me loose and said I was free to go.And the constable and notary wanted the man and the woman to pay them for their services.And there was a lot of shouting and arguing about that.They said they weren't obligated to pay:there was no reason for them to,since nothing had been attached.But the men said that they had missed out on some other more profitable business just so they could come here.
Finally,after a lot of shouting,they loaded the old lady's old mattress onto a deputy--even though it wasn't very much of a load.And all five of them went off,shouting at each other.I don't know how it all turned out.I think that sinner of a mattress must have paid everyone's expenses.And that was a good use for it because the time it should have spent relaxing and resting from its past strain,it had still been going around being rented out.
So,as I've said,my poor third master left me,and I saw the hand of my bad luck in this,too.It showed how much it was going against me,because it arranged my affairs so backward that instead of me leaving my master--which is what normally happens--my master left and ran away from me.
How Lazaro Went to Work for a Friar of the Order of Mercy and What Happened to Him
I had to get a fourth master,and this one turned out to be a friar of the Order of Mercy.The women I've mentioned recommended me to him.They said he was a relative.He didn't think much of choir duties or eating in the monastery;he was always running around on the outside;and he was really devoted to secular business and visiting.In fact,he was so dedicated to this that I think he wore out more shoes than the whole monastery put together.He gave me the first pair of shoes I ever wore,but they didn't last me a week.And I wouldn't have lasted much longer myself trying to keep up with him.So because of this and some other little things that I don't want to mention,I left him.
How Lazaro Went to Work for a Pardoner and the Things That Happened to Him Then
As luck would have it,the fifth one I ran into was a seller of papal indulgences.He was arrogant,without principles,the biggest hawker of indulgences that I've ever seen in my life or ever hope to see--and probably the biggest one of all time.He had all sorts of ruses and underhanded tricks,and he was always thinking up new ones.
When he'd come to a place where he was going to sell these pardons,first he'd give the priests and the other clergy some presents--just little things that really weren't worth much:some lettuce from Murcia;a couple limes or oranges if they were in season;maybe a peach;some pears--the kind that stay green even after they're ripe.That way he tried to win them over so they'd look kindly on his business and call out their congregation to buy up the indulgences.
When they thanked him,he'd find out how well educated they were.If they said they understood Latin,he wouldn't speak a word of it so they couldn't trip him up;instead he'd use some refined,polished-sounding words and flowery phrases.And if he saw that these clerics were "appointed reverends"--I mean that they bought their way into the priesthood instead of by going through school--he turned into a Saint Thomas,and for two hours he'd speak Latin.Or,at least,something that sounded like Latin even if it wasn't.
When they wouldn't take his pardons willingly,he'd try to find some underhanded way to get them to take them.To do that,he'd sometimes make a nuisance of himself,and other times he'd use his bag of tricks.It would take too long to talk about all the things I saw him do,so I'll just tell about one that was really sly and clever,and I think that will show how good he was at it.
In a place called Sagra,in the province of Toledo,he'd been preaching for two or three days,trying his usual gimmicks,and not one person had bought an indulgence,and I couldn't see that they had any intention of buying any.He swore up and down,and trying to think of what to do,he decided to call the town together the next morning so he could try to sell all the pardons.
And that night,after supper,he and the constable began to gamble to see who would pay for the meal.They got to quarreling over the game,and there were heated words.He called the constable a thief,and the constable called him a swindler.At that point my master,the pardoner,picked up a spear that was lying against the door of the room where they were playing.The constable reached for his sword,that he kept at his side.
The guests and neighbors came running at the noise and shouting we all began to make,and they got in between the two of them to break it up.Both men were really mad,and they tried to get away from the people who were holding them back so they could kill each other.But since those people had come swarming in at all the noise,the house was full of them,and when the two men saw that they couldn't use their weapons they began to call each other names.And at one point the constable said my master was a swindler and that all the pardons he was selling were counterfeit.
Finally,the townspeople saw that they couldn't make them stop,so they decided to get the constable out of the inn and take him somewhere else.And that made my master even madder.But after the guests and neighbors pleaded with him to forget about it and go home to bed he left,and then so did everyone else.
