irs. He wanted to hear my adventures, and did not wait for me
to ask him to tell his story. He told me at great length the various
incidents in his life for the seventeen years in which we had not seen
one another. He had left the service of the King of Spain for that of the
King of Portugal, he was secretary of embassy to the Commander Almada,
and he had been obliged to leave Rome because the Pope Rezzonico would
not allow the King of Portugal to punish certain worthy Jesuit assassins,
who had only broken his arm as it happened, but who had none the less
meant to take his life. Thus, Gama was staying in Italy corresponding
with Almada and the famous Carvalho, waiting for the dispute to be
finished before he returned to Rome. In point of fact this was the only
substantial incident in the abbe's story, but he worked in so many
episodes of no consequence that it lasted for an hour. No doubt he wished
me to shew my gratitude by telling him all my adventures without reserve;
but the upshot of it was that we both shewed ourselves true diplomatists,
he in lengthening his story, I in shortening mine, while I could not help
feeling some enjoyment in baulking the curiosity of my cassocked friend.

"What are you going to do in Rome?" said he, indifferently.

"I am going to beg the Pope to use his influence in my favour with the
State Inquisitors at Venice."

It was not the truth, but one lie is as good as another, and if I had
said I was only going for amusement's sake he would not have believed me.
To tell the truth to an unbelieving man is to prostitute, to murder it.
He then begged me to enter into a correspondence with him, and as that
bound me to nothing I agreed to do so.

"I can give you a mark of my friendship," said he, "by introducing you to
the Marquis de Botta-Adamo, Governor of Tuscany; he is supposed to be a
friend of the regent's."

I accepted his offer gratefully, and he began to sound me about Therese,
but found my lips as tightly closed as the lid of a miser's coffer. I
told him she was a child when I made the acquaintance of her family at
Bologna, and that the resemblance between her brother and myself was a
mere accident--a freak of nature. He happened to catch sight of a
well-written manuscript on the table, and asked me if that superb writing
was my secretary's. Costa, who was present, answered in Spanish that he
wrote it. Gama overwhelmed him with compliments, and begged me to send
Costa to him to copy