"You speak the language of Spain very imperfectly," said I; "how
long have you been in the country?"
"Forty-five years," replied Benedict; "but when the guard was
broken up, I went to Minorca, where I lost the Spanish language
without acquiring the Catalan."
"You have been a soldier of the king of Spain," said I; "how did
you like the service?"
"Not so well, but that I should have been glad to leave it forty
years ago; the pay was bad, and the treatment worse. I will now
speak Swiss to you, for, if I am not much mistaken, you are a
German man, and understand the speech of Lucerne; I should soon
have deserted from the service of Spain, as I did from that of the
Pope, whose soldier I was in my early youth before I came here; but
I had married a woman of Minorca, by whom I had two children; it
was this that detained me in those parts so long; before, however,
I left Minorca, my wife died, and as for my children, one went
east, the other west, and I know not what became of them; I intend
shortly to return to Lucerne, and live there like a duke."
"Have you, then, realized a large capital in Spain?" said I,
glancing at his hat and the rest of his apparel.
