Wherever Peter went the people said, "No one knew that you were such a smart fellow. Thoma used to be the only one talked about, just as though there were no such person as you." Peter smiled craftily when he heard this; he put on a grieved, troubled look, and shook his head, but was nevertheless pleased to hear people add, "Your father rather put you down."
Peter was not unassuming; quite the reverse, for he looked upon all men as his debtors. They had allowed him to grow up in simplicity and honesty for three and twenty years without revealing to him how sweet knavery tastes. But now, he was finding out for himself.
"Look! Look! There comes Peter of Reutershöfen!" was heard up and down the mountain side.
"Yes, people did not know what kind of a fellow he was; they thought he couldn't count three; and now he turns out to be one of the sharpest fellows possible."
It was true; he had not been exactly a blockhead; but dull and unsympathetic. And what had he now become?
It may, perhaps, seem unnatural, but nevertheless it was a thoroughly logical development; he had become an accomplished hypocrite.
Once, at a fair, when Peter had taken an electric shock, a strange something ran through his frame. He had very much the same feeling the first time that Tobias said to him, "We must act as though we had seen everything so, and seem thoroughly honest about it, and then we shall be able to make other people think so."
Peter discovered that hypocrisy was sweet to the taste; and that it was no new thing for the world to feast on it.
Wherever he went people condoled with him over his misfortune, even when he was quite sure they were glad of it.
However, he paid them in the same coin by pretending to be excessively amiable. This helped to make him energetic; for the secret pleasure and delight of making a laughing stock of others, animated him anew every morning. He and Tobias made themselves merry over the trick they were playing on the people, and on having succeeded in persuading a few simple-minded persons, as well as some rascals, to testify as they wished. Tobias gave his pupil this advice:
"Now, you see, sharp people get along best in this world. They are never cheated nor plagued. If you want anything of them, and knock at their door, they pretend not to be at home. 'There is no one at home; and I'm asleep,' as the old peasant woman called out to the beggar that knocked at her door on a Sunday afternoon."