Pablo De Segovia by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas

At length the day came when I left the sweetest life I have ever known. I cannot express how much it troubled me to leave so many friends and dear acquaintance, for they were very numerous. I sold what little I had got underhand, to bear my charges on the way; and with some tricks and sleights of hand, made up about forty crowns, hired a mule, and left my lodging, where I had nothing to leave behind. The Lord alone knows what a hue and cry there was after me; the shoemaker roared for the shoes he had trusted me with; the old housekeeper scolded for her wages; the landlord fretted for his rent. One cried, "My heart always misgave me that I should be so served"; another said, "They were much in the right who told me that this fellow was a cheat."

In short, I was so generally beloved that I left half the town in tears for me when I came away, and the other half laughing at those that bemoaned themselves. I diverted myself with these thoughts along the road, when having passed through the town of Torote, I overtook a man riding on a he-mule, with a pannel. He talked to himself very rapidly, and was so wrapt in imagination that he did not perceive me, though I was close by his side. I saluted him, and he returned the courtesy; then I asked which way he was travelling; and after a few such questions and answers had passed between us, began to discourse about the Turks coming down, and the king's forces. Then he began to lay a scheme for recovering of the Holy Land, and the taking of Algiers; by which discourse I perceived that he was mad upon politics and government.