ok in your face," said he, "tells me that the recognition has been
mutual. I knew you directly in spite of the sixteen years that have
passed since we saw each other at Vicenza. To-morrow you can tell
everybody that we are friends, and that though I am not a prince I am
really a count; here is my passport from the King of Naples, pray read
it."

During this rapid monologue I could not get in a single word, and on
attentively scanning his features I could only recollect that I had seen
him before, but when or where or how I knew not. I opened the passport
and read the name of Ruggero di Rocco, Count Piccolomini. That was
enough; I remembered an individual of that name who was a fencing-master
in Vicenza, and on looking at him again his aspect, though much changed
left no doubt as to the identity of the swordsman and the count.

"I congratulate you," said I, "on your change of employment, your new
business is doubtless much better than the old."

"I taught fencing," he replied, "to save myself from dying of hunger, for
my father was so hard a man that he would not give me the wherewithal to
live, and I disguised my name so as not to disgrace it. On my father's
death I succeeded to the property, and at Rome I married the lady you
have seen."

"You had good taste, for she's a pretty woman."

"She is generally thought so, and it was a love match on my side."

He ended by asking me to come and see him in his room the next day, after
dinner, telling me that I should find good company and a bank at faro,
which he kept himself. He added, without ceremony, that if I liked we
could go half shares, and that I should find it profitable. I thanked
him, and promised to pay him a visit.

I went abroad at an early hour next morning, and after having spent some
time with the Jew, Boaz, and having given a polite refusal to his offer
of a bed, I went to pay my respects to M. d'Afri, who since the death of
the Princess of Orange, the Regent of the Low Countries, was generally
known as His Most Christian Majesty's ambassador. He gave me an excellent
reception, but he said that if I had returned to Holland hoping to do
business on behalf of the Government I should waste my time, since the
action of the comptroller-general had lowered the credit of the nation,
which was thought to be on the verge of bankruptcy.

"This M. Silhouette," said he, "has served the king very badly. It is all
very well to say that payments are only suspended f