“Well,” said I to Maria Diaz on the third morning after my imprisonment, “what do the people of Madrid say to this affair of mine?”

“I do not know what the people of Madrid in general say about it, probably they do not take much interest in it; indeed, imprisonments at the present time are such common matters that people seem to be quite indifferent to them; the priests, however, are in no slight commotion, and confess that they have committed an imprudent thing in causing you to be arrested by their friend the corregidor of Madrid.”

“How is that?” I inquired. “Are they afraid that their friend will be punished?”

“Not so, Señor,” replied Maria; “slight grief indeed would it cause them, however great the trouble in which he had involved himself on their account; for this description of people have no affection, and would not care if all their friends were hanged, provided they themselves escaped. But they say that they have acted imprudently in sending you to prison, inasmuch as by so doing they have given you an opportunity of carrying a plan of yours into execution. ‘This fellow is a bribon,’ say they, ‘and has commenced tampering with the prisoners; they have taught him their language, which he already speaks as well as if he were a son of the prison. As soon as he comes out he will publish a thieves' gospel, which will be a still more dangerous affair than the Gypsy one, for the Gypsies are few, but the thieves! woe is us; we shall all be Lutheranized. What infamy, what rascality! It was a trick of his own. He was always eager to get into prison, and now in evil hour we have sent him there, el bribonazo; there will be no safety for Spain until he is hanged; he ought to be sent à los cuatro infiernos, where at his leisure he might translate his fatal gospels into the language of the demons.’”