tified to hear that they had come too late. They
begged me to forgive the laws of the land, which are only too often
converted into a means for the annoyance of foreigners.

At last, after one of the most tedious days I have ever spent, I returned
home and went to bed, laughing at the experience I had undergone.

EPISODE 24 -- FLIGHT FROM LONDON TO BERLIN

CHAPTER XIV

Bottarelli--A Letter from Pauline--The Avenging Parrot--Pocchini--Guerra,
the Venetian--I Meet Sara Again; My Idea of Marrying Her and Settling in
Switzerland--The Hanoverians

Thus ended the first act of the comedy; the second began the next
morning. I was just getting up, when I heard a noise at the street door,
and on putting my head out of the window I saw Pocchini, the scoundrel
who had robbed me at Stuttgart trying to get into my house. I cried out
wrathfully that I would have nothing to do with him, and slammed down my
window.

A little later Goudar put in an appearance. He had got a copy of the St.
James's Chronicle, containing a brief report of my arrest, and of my
being set a liberty under a bail of eighty guineas. My name and the
lady's were disguised, but Rostaing and Bottarelli were set down plainly,
and the editor praised their conduct. I felt as if I should like to know
Bottarelli, and begged Goudar to take me to him, and Martinelli,
happening to call just then, said he would come with us.

We entered a wretched room on the third floor of a wretched house, and
there we beheld a picture of the greatest misery. A woman and five
children clothed in rags formed the foreground, and in the background was
Bottarelli, in an old dressing-gown, writing at a table worthy of
Philemon and Baucis. He rose as we came in, and the sight of him moved me
to compassion. I said,--

"Do you know me, sir?"

"No, sir, I do not."

"I am Casanova, against whom you bore false witness; whom you tried to
cast into Newgate."

"I am very sorry, but look around you and say what choice have I? I have
no bread to give my children. I will do as much in your favour another
time for nothing."

"Are you not afraid of the gallows?"

"No, for perjury is not punished with death; besides it is very difficult
to prove."

"I have heard you are a poet."

"Yes. I have lengthened the Didone and abridged the Demetrio."

"You are a great poet, indeed!"

I felt more contempt than hatred for the rascal, and gave his wife a
guinea, for which she present