he could indulge it by placing the house at Sacchi's disposal.
Not many months passed before I was chosen by that gentleman as
arbitrator between him and Sacchi. I acted the solicitor, drew up a
lease, and installed my manager in the theatre his heart was set on.

I should have liked to devote myself entirely to my private studies; but
the responsibility I had taken by transferring Sacchi's company to S.
Samuele, together with the informal engagement I felt under to Signor
Vendramini, made me resume my task of writing for the stage. I ought to
add that my old habit of associating with the actors weighed strongly
with me in this circumstance. Therefore a new chapter of some fourteen
years in my life was opened, the principal events of which I mean to
write with all the candour and the piquancy I can.

XLV.

_Dangerous innovations in Sacchi's company.--My attempts to arrange
matters, my threats, prognostications, and obstinate persistence on the
point of honour to support my proteges--things sufficient to move
reasonable mirth against me._

The grant of the theatre at San Salvadore for the next year had hardly
been handed over to Sacchi, when the other troupe, who were expelled to
make room for him, engaged the theatre at Sant'Angelo, which he was
leaving, and began at once to plot revenge. They tried, by flatteries
and promises of money (always needed by Italian comedians), to
circumvent the best actors of the company, among whom were Cesare
Derbes, the excellent Pantalone, and Agostino Fiorelli, the famous
Tartaglia. In fact, they did seduce these two champions of impromptu
comedy to desert Sacchi's ranks and join their squadron, more with the
object of weakening our forces than of strengthening theirs, since their
own members were unfit for any performances but those of the so-called
cultivated drama.

This desertion mortified the sharers in Sacchi's company, and they
whispered their misfortune in my ears. For my own part, I was sorry to
think that the quartette of masks, real natural wonders, who made such
pleasant mirth in concert, should be scattered. I determined, therefore,
to try whether I could not dissuade these two actors from the somewhat
shabby step they had resolved on. When I remonstrated with Derbes, who
was my gossip, the answer he gave me ran as follows: "Precisely because
I feared that you would attempt to separate me from my new comrades, and
because I know my inability to refuse you any