Treated by the rich with a certain contempt, the official used to seek the boy's company because he was the only creature who would listen to him attentively.
He adored the _mare nostrum_ as much as Doctor Ferragut, but his enthusiasm was not concerned with the Phoenician and Egyptian ships whose keels had first plowed these waves.

He was equally indifferent to Grecian and Carthaginian Triremes, Roman warships, and the monstrous galleys of the Sicilian tyrants,--palaces moved by oars, with statues, fountains and gardens.

That which most interested him was the Mediterranean of the Middle Ages, that of the kings of Aragon, the Catalunian Sea.

And the poor secretary would give long daily dissertations about them in order to pique the local pride of his juvenile listener.
One day after dilating at length on Roger de Lauria and the Catalan navy, he wound up his tedious history by telling the little fellow how Alfonso V, his brother the King of Navarre, and all his cortege of magnates, had remained prisoners of the Republic of Genoa, which, terrified by the importance of its royal prey, had entrusted the captives to the guard of the Duke of Milan....

But the monarchs easily came to an understanding in order to deceive the democratic governments, and the Milanese sovereign released the King of Aragon with all his suite.