From the Memoirs of a Minister of France | Page 9

the difference.
"Look, man!" I said, holding out one of these for his inspection. "These
are balls; the rest are rubbish. Cannot you see the difference? Where
did you buy these? At Constant's?"
He muttered, "No, my lord," and looked confused.
This roused my curiosity. "Where, then?" I said sharply.
"Of a man who was at the gate yesterday."
"Oh!" I said. "Selling tennis balls?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Some rogue of a marker," I exclaimed, "from whom you bought
filched goods! Who was it, man?"
"I don't know his name," La Trape answered. "He was a Spaniard."
"Well?"
"Who wanted to have an audience of your excellency."
"Ho!" I said drily. "Now I understand. Bring me your book. Or, tell me,
what have you charged me for these balls?"
"Two francs," he muttered reluctantly.
"And never gave a sou, I'll swear!" I retorted. "You took the poor

devil's balls, and left him at the gate! Ay, it is rogues like you get me a
bad name!" I continued, affecting more anger than I felt--for, in truth, I
was rather pleased with my quickness in discovering the cheat. "You
steal and I bear the blame, and pay to boot! Off with you and find the
fellow, and bring him to me, or it will be the worse for you!"
Glad to escape so easily, La Trape ran to the gate; but he failed to find
his friend, and two or three days elapsed before I thought again of the
matter, such petty rogueries being ingrained in a great man's
VALETAILLE, and being no more to be removed than the hairs from a
man's arm. At the end of that time La Trape came to me, bringing the
Spaniard; who had appeared again at the gate. The stranger proved to
be a small, slight man, pale and yet brown, with quick-glancing eyes.
His dress was decent, but very poor, with more than one rent neatly
darned. He made me a profound reverence, and stood waiting, with his
cap in his hand, to be addressed; but, with all his humility, I did not fail
to detect an easiness of deportment and a propriety that did not seem
absolutely strange since he was a Spaniard, but which struck me,
nevertheless, as requiring some explanation. I asked him, civilly, who
he was. He answered that his name was Diego.
"You speak French?"
"I am of Guipuzcoa, my lord," he answered, "where we sometimes
speak three tongues."
"That is true," I said. "And it is your trade to make tennis balls?"
"No, my lord; to use them," he answered with a certain dignity.
"You are a player, then?"
"If it please your excellency."
"Where have you played?"
"At Madrid, where I was the keeper of the Duke of Segovia's court; and
at Toledo, where I frequently had the honour of playing against M. de

Montserrat."
"You are a good player?"
"If your excellency," he answered impulsively, "will give me an
opportunity--"
"Softly, softly," I said, somewhat taken aback by his earnestness.
"Granted that you are a player, you seem to have played to small
purpose.. Why are you here, my friend, and not in Madrid?"
He drew up his sleeves, and showed me that his wrists were deeply
scarred.
I shrugged my shoulders. "You have been in the hands of the Holy
Brotherhood?" I said.
"No, my lord," he answered bitterly. "Of the Holy Inquisition."
"You are a Protestant?"
He bowed.
On that I fell to considering him with more attention, but at the same
time with some distrust; reflecting that he was a Spaniard, and recalling
the numberless plots against his Majesty of which that nation had been
guilty. Still, if his tale were true he deserved support; with a view
therefore to testing this I questioned him farther, and learned that he
had for a long time disguised his opinions, until, opening them in an
easy moment to a fellow servant, he found himself upon the first
occasion of quarrel betrayed to the Fathers. After suffering much, and
giving himself up for lost in their dungeons, he made his escape in a
manner sufficiently remarkable, if I might believe his story. In the
prison with him lay a Moor, for whose exchange against a Christian
taken by the Sallee pirates an order came down. It arrived in the
evening; the Moor was to be removed in the morning. An hour after the
arrival of the news, however, and when the two had just been locked up
for the night, the Moor, overcome with excess of joy, suddenly expired.

At first the Spaniard was for giving the alarm; but, being an ingenious
fellow, in a few minutes he summoned all his wits together and made a
plan. Contriving to blacken his face and hands with charcoal he
changed