Gama in front of a coffee-house. I whispered to him that Minerva had
forbidden me the coffee-rooms of Rome. "Minerva," he answered, "desires
you to form some idea of such places. Sit down by me."

I heard a young abbe telling aloud, but without bitterness, a story,
which attacked in a most direct manner the justice of His Holiness.
Everybody was laughing and echoing the story. Another, being asked why he
had left the services of Cardinal B., answered that it was because his
eminence did not think himself called upon to pay him apart for certain
private services, and everybody laughed outright. Another came to the
Abbe Gama, and told him that, if he felt any inclination to spend the
afternoon at the Villa Medicis, he would find him there with two young
Roman girls who were satisfied with a 'quartino', a gold coin worth
one-fourth of a sequin. Another abbe read an incendiary sonnet against
the government, and several took a copy of it. Another read a satire of
his own composition, in which he tore to pieces the honour of a family.
In the middle of all that confusion, I saw a priest with a very
attractive countenance come in. The size of his hips made me take him for
a woman dressed in men's clothes, and I said so to Gama, who told me that
he was the celebrated castrato, Bepino delta Mamana. The abbe called him
to us, and told him with a laugh that I had taken him for a girl. The
impudent fellow looked me full in the face, and said that, if I liked, he
would shew me whether I had been right or wrong.

At the dinner-table everyone spoke to me, and I fancied I had given
proper answers to all, but, when the repast was over, the Abbe Gama
invited me to take coffee in his own apartment. The moment we were alone,
he told me that all the guests I had met were worthy and honest men, and
he asked me whether I believed that I had succeeded in pleasing the
company.

"I flatter myself I have," I answered.

"You are wrong," said the abbe, "you are flattering yourself. You have so
conspicuously avoided the questions put to you that everybody in the room
noticed your extreme reserve. In the future no one will ask you any
questions."

"I should be sorry if it should turn out so, but was I to expose my own
concerns?"

"No, but there is a medium in all things."

"Yes, the medium of Horace, but it is often a matter of great difficulty
to hit it exactly."

"A man ought to know how to obtain affection and esteem at the same
time."