Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/336

332 FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES. by modesty, led on by hope, or deterred by fear, for they know the danger of meddling with men of power. And last of all, when you are got over head and ears in debt, then upon one pretence or another remove your quarters first to one place and then to another ; and you need not be ashamed of that, for nobody is more in debt than great princes. If you find yourself pressed by a fellow of mean condition, make as if you were provoked by his confidence ; but make a small payment now and then, but never pay the whole sum, nor to all your creditors. But you must always take care that none ever come to know that you have an empty pocket; always make a show of money. Ha. But what can a man make a show of that has nothing? Ne. If any friend has given you anything to lay up for him, shew it as your own, but do it artfully, as if it were done by chance. And it will be good in this case to borrow money and shew it, though you pay it again presently. Pull a couple of guineas, that you have placed by them- selves, out of your pocket, from a whole pocketful of counters. You may imagine Ha. I understand you; but at last I must of necessity sink under my debts.

Ne. You know what knights can do with us. Ha. They do just what they please, and there is no redress. Ne. Let those servants you keep be such as are diligent ones, or some of your kindred, such as must be kept however. They will stumble now and then upon some merchant upon the way and rob him; they will find something in an inn, a house, or a boat that wants a keeper ; they will remember that a man's fingers were -not given him for nothing. Ha. Ay, if this could be done with safety. Ne. You must take care to keep them in handsome liveries, and be still sending them with counterfeit letters to this great man or the other. If they steal anything, although they should suspect them, nobody will dare to charge them with it, for fear of the knight their master. If they chance to take a booty by force, it is as good as a prize in war. Ha. Oh, brave counsel ! Ne. This maxim of knighthood is always to be maintained, that it is lawful for a knight upon the road to ease a common traveller of his money ; for what can be more dishonourable than for a pitiful tradesman to have money enough, and a knight at the same time wants it to spend upon his whores and at dice 1 Get as much as you can into the com- pany of great men, though you pin yourself upon them ; and that you may not be ashamed of anything, you must put on a brazen face, but especially to your host. And it will be best for you to live in some public place, as at the Bath, and at the most frequented inns. Ha. I was thinking of that,

Ne. In such places fortune will oftentimes throw some prey in the way. Ha. How, I beseech you ? Ne. Suppose one drops a purse, another leaves the key in the door of his storehouse, or so, you take me in. Ha. But Ne. What are you afraid of? Who will dare to suspect a person that goes as you do, talks great, the Knight of the Golden Rock ? If there shall happen to be any saucy fellow impudent enough to dare to suspect you, the suspicion will rather be cast upon somebody that went away the day before. There will be a disorder among the master and the servants, and do you behave yourself as a person wholly unconcerned. If this accident befals either a man of modesty or of brains, he will pass it over without making words of it,