when it is once in my hands you need not hope to see it again. A spirit
which is under my orders will bring it to me at midnight, and the same
spirit will tell me where the treasure is buried:"

"Let the spirit tell you that, and I shall be convinced."

"Give me a pen, ink and paper."

I asked a question from my oracle, and the answer I had was that the
treasure was to be found not far from the Rubicon.

"That is," I said, "a torrent which was once a river:"

They consulted a dictionary, and found that the Rubicon flowed through
Cesena. They were amazed, and, as I wished them to have full scope for
wrong reasoning, I left them.

I had taken a fancy, not to purloin five hundred sequins from those poor
fools, but to go and unearth the amount at their expense in the house of
another fool, and to laugh at them all into the bargain. I longed to play
the part of a magician. With that idea, when I left the house of the
ridiculous antiquarian, I proceeded to the public library, where, with
the assistance of a dictionary, I wrote the following specimen of
facetious erudition:

"The treasure is buried in the earth at a depth of seventeen and a half
fathoms, and has been there for six centuries. Its value amounts to two
millions of sequins, enclosed in a casket, the same which was taken by
Godfrey de Bouillon from Mathilda, Countess of Tuscany, in the year 1081,
when he endeavoured to assist Henry IV, against that princess. He buried
the box himself in the very spot where it now is, before he went to lay
siege to Jerusalem. Gregory VII, who was a great magician, having been
informed of the place where it had been hidden, had resolved on getting
possession of it himself, but death prevented him from carrying out his
intentions. After the death of the Countess Mathilda, in the year 1116,
the genius presiding over all hidden treasures appointed seven spirits to
guard the box. During a night with a full moon, a learned magician can
raise the treasure to the surface of the earth by placing himself in the
middle of the magical ring called maximus:"

I expected to see the father and son, and they came early in the morning.
After some rambling conversation, I gave them what I had composed at the
library, namely, the history of the treasure taken from the Countess
Mathilda.

I told them that I had made up my mind to recover the treasure, and I
promised them the fourth part of it, provided they would purchase the
sheath; I conclud