I soon rejoined my old comrades, but took good care not to communicate my late disgrace to them: had they known it, I should never have heard the last of my flogging adventure at Gaeta, which would have been an everlasting joke against me. I told them that I had merely taken a trip out of curiosity to some of the neighbouring villages; but that I had found by experience that, there was no place like Rome for persons of our calling. I must indeed have been half mad when I thought of leaving this blessed city, where we all lived so well, never failing to collect daily as much money as we wanted. Every fowl fills its crop by a single grain at a time. In like manner we accumulated our money; and after having converted it into gold, we carried it about with us sewed to our garments under rags, which frequently concealed a sufficient sum to buy a complete new suit. We might be said to have been stitched up with gold; and there were some few old rascals among us who were worth a very considerable sum which they always carried about their persons. Persons of our class generally possess the vices of avarice and cruelty in the highest degree. I will illustrate this assertion by relating to you a very singular example in the history of a beggar of my own acquaintance, which is well worth the recital.
A poor beggar, named _Pantalon Castello_, a native of Genoa, having married at Florence, had one son by his wife whom he intended so to establish in life as to render it unnecessary for him either to work, or go into service to obtain his livelihood: with this view, taking advantage of the facility with which the delicate members of a new born infant may be dislocated, he determined on the barbarity of crippling his own child. Perchance, reader, you will feel inclined to stop me here, to tell me that this is by no means extraordinary among beggars. I am ready to allow, that beggars of every nation in the world are in the habit of availing themselves of such inhuman means to excite compassion: but our _Pantalon_, like a true Genoese, was willing to surpass all his predecessors in this point, and disfigured his poor son so dreadfully that there was scarcely such another monster in the world. This unfortunate child, who, with the exception of his arms and tongue, which had not been touched, was deformed all over, was no sooner out of his infancy, than he began to exhibit himself through the streets in a kind of cage, on a little ass which he guided with his own hands.