quired of my oracle whether I would meet at the ball anyone whom I
should not care to see. The answer I obtained was this: 'Leave the
ball-room precisely at four o'clock.' I obeyed implicitly, and met your
excellency."

The three friends were astounded. M. Dandolo asked me whether I would
answer a question he would ask, the interpretation of which would belong
only to him, as he was the only person acquainted with the subject of the
question.

I declared myself quite willing, for it was necessary to brazen it out,
after having ventured as far as I had done. He wrote the question, and
gave it to me; I read it, I could not understand either the subject or
the meaning of the words, but it did not matter, I had to give an answer.
If the question was so obscure that I could not make out the sense of it,
it was natural that I should not understand the answer. I therefore
answered, in ordinary figures, four lines of which he alone could be the
interpreter, not caring much, at least in appearance, how they would be
understood. M. Dandolo read them twice over, seemed astonished, said that
it was all very plain to him; it was Divine, it was unique, it was a gift
from Heaven, the numbers being only the vehicle, but the answer emanating
evidently from an immortal spirit.

M. Dandolo was so well pleased that his two friends very naturally wanted
also to make an experiment. They asked questions on all sorts of
subjects, and my answers, perfectly unintelligible to myself, were all
held as Divine by them. I congratulated them on their success, and
congratulated myself in their presence upon being the possessor of a
thing to which I had until then attached no importance whatever, but
which I promised to cultivate carefully, knowing that I could thus be of
some service to their excellencies.

They all asked me how long I would require to teach them the rules of my
sublime calculus. "Not very long," I answered, "and I will teach you as
you wish, although the hermit assured me that I would die suddenly within
three days if I communicated my science to anyone, but I have no faith
whatever in that prediction." M. de Bragadin who believed in it more than
I did, told me in a serious tone that I was bound to have faith in it,
and from that day they never asked me again to teach them. They very
likely thought that, if they could attach me to them, it would answer the
purpose as well as if they possessed the science themselves. Thus I
became