And so concluded, that as there
were but three, they had need of a fourth.'
The ladies fell a laughing at the porter's discourse, after which
Zobeide says to him, very gravely, Friend, you are a little too
bold; and though you do not deserve that I should enter into
particulars with you, yet I am willing to tell you we are three
sisters, who do our business so secretly that nobody knows any
thing of it. We have too great reason to be cautious of
acquainting indiscreet persons with it; and a good author that we
have read, says, 'Keep your secret, and do not reveal it to any
body.' He that reveals it is no longer master of it. If your own
breast cannot keep your secret, how do you think that another
person will keep it?
My ladies, replies the porter, by your very air I judged at first
you were persons of extraordinary merit, and I conceive that I am
not mistaken; though fortune has not given me wealth enough to
raise me above my mean profession, yet I have not failed to
cultivate my mind as much as I could by reading books of science
and history: And allow me, if you please, to tell you, that I
have also read in another author a maxim which I have always
happily practised: 'We do not conceal our secrets, says he, but
from such persons as are known to all the world to want
discretion, and would abuse the confidence we put in them; but we
make no scruple to discover them to prudent persons, because we
know they can keep them.
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