OX TO PARIS. 95 



ther Cassanate, he says, nor the money that he offered, 

 nor the hope of other profit, nor the wish to see new coun- 

 tries, persuaded him ; but the fear lest, when he got back 

 among his own people, some scandal, with a look of truth 

 about it, might be invented to explain his quick return ; 

 est he might be disgraced and bespattered by the gossip 

 of his tattle-loving city. Therefore, having received the 

 additional three hundred crowns, Jerome consented to 

 go on, and on the 18th of April the two physicians set 

 out, using the river Loire 1 for their highway as far as 

 possible, upon the road to Paris. Just before quitting 

 Lyons, on the last day of preparation for departure, 

 advice was sought from the great Italian by a certain 

 schoolmaster, afflicted with a serious disease. He brought 

 money in his hand ; but Cardan declined to undertake 

 the case at such a time. The man said then that he could 

 show the way to a boy able to see demons in a pitcher. 

 By that offer Jerome was tempted; he went therefore, 

 but found nothing worthy of a grave attention. In the 

 mean time, he and his new patient had been talking of the 

 mirror of Orontius, which kindles fire, and which the 



well into Cardan's narrative as perfectly to explain the real emer- 

 gency by which the archbishop was detained in Scotland. The next 

 citation is from the same authority (p. 130). 



1 De Vita Propria, p. 19 ; and for the succeeding anecdote, the same 

 authority compared with the fuller account given in the last book De 

 Libris Propriis. 



