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Volume One: II.3 69 Four Parts of the Breviary, which the moths had almost consumed. With regard to the manuscripts, the most curious contained all the proceedings of a law-suit in which he was once engaged, for his prebend.11 After having examined the legacy with more attention than it deserved, I left it to the relations who envied me so much. I gave them back the very cloaths I wore, and resumed my own; claiming my wages only, as the fruit of my service; and resolving to seek a place elsewhere. As for Dame Jacinta, besides the money which was left to her, she was in possession of some valuable effects, which, by the assistance of her good friend, she had found means to secrete, during the licentiate’s last illness. chapter iii. Gil Blas engages himself in the service of Doctor Sangrado, and becomes a celebrated physician. Iresolved to visit Signior Arias de Londonna and consult his register for a new place; but as I was just going into the blind alley where he lived, I met doctor Sangrado, whom I had not seen since the death of my master, and took the freedom to salute him. He recollected me immediately, although I had changed my dress, and expressing some joy at seeing me, “Art thou there, my child? (said he) I was just thinking of thee; having occasion for a good lad to serve me, I imagined that thou wouldst answer my purpose very well; if thou canst read and write.” “Sir, (answered I) in that particular , I can do your business.” “Say’st thou so? (said he) then thou art the man I want: come to my house, where thou shalt find every thing agreeable: I will treat thee with distinction; and though I give no wages, thou shalt want for nothing: I will take care to maintain thee handsomely; and will ever discover to thee, the great mystery of curing all diseases; in a word, thou shalt rather be my pupil than my servant.” I accepted the doctor’s proposal, in hopes of making myself illustrious in physic, under the auspices of such a learned master; and he carried me home with him on the instant, in order to initiate me in the employment for which I was designed. This employment consisted in writing the names and places of abode of the patients who sent for him while he was abroad: for this purpose, there was in the house, a register in which an old woman who was his sole domestic, set down their several directions: but besides that she was utterly ignorant of spelling, she wrote so ill, that for the most part, it was impossible to decypher her scrawl. I was invested with the charge of this book, which might have been with great justice, stiled a register of the dead; for almost all the people whose names it contained, gave up the ghost.1 I inserted in it (to use the expression) the names of those people who were to set out for the other world, as the clerk of a stage-coach-office registers those who take places. The pen was seldom out of my hand, because there was not at that time, a physician in Valladolid, of 70 The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane more credit than doctor Sangrado, who had acquired great reputation with the public, by a pomp of words, a solemn air, and some lucky cures which had done him more honour than he deserved. He did not want practice, nor of consequence, money, which however, did not make us fare the better, his housekeeping being extremely parsimonious; our ordinary food consisting of pease, beans, boiled codlins,2 or cheese; which aliments (he said) were agreeable to the stomach, as being most proper for trituration,3 in other words, easily brayed.4 Notwithstanding this his opinion, however, he did not approve of our eating a belly-full even of them: in which, to be sure, he was much in the right: but if he forbid his maid and me to eat a great deal, he allowed us, by way of recompence, to drink as much water as we could swallow: far from restricting us in this particular, he would sometimes say, “Drink, my children, health consists in the suppleness and humectation5 of the parts: drink water in great abundance: it is an universal menstruum6 that dissolves all kinds of salt. When the course...

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