What were they to me?
At last, coming to a thick volume, I opened it, and after inspecting its contents for a few minutes, I paid for it what was demanded, and forthwith carried it home.
It was a tessaraglot grammar; a strange old book, printed somewhere in Holland, which pretended to be an easy guide to the acquirement of the French, Italian, Low Dutch, and English tongues, by means of which any one conversant in any one of these languages could make himself master of the other three.

I turned my attention to the French and Italian.

The old book was not of much value; I derived some benefit from it, however, and, conning it intensely, at the end of a few weeks obtained some insight into the structure of these two languages.

At length I had learnt all that the book was capable of informing me, yet was still far from the goal to which it had promised to conduct me.

'I wish I had a master!' I exclaimed; and the master was at hand.