or
employment an board your ship?"

"At present I have no special employ to give you; that will come in time.
Come on board as my friend."

"The offer is an honourable one so far as you are concerned, but all the
other officers might treat me with contempt. I should be regarded as a
kind of fool, and I should probably kill the first man who dared to
insult me. Give me a distinct office, and let me wear your uniform; I
will be useful to you. I know the country for which you are bound, I can
speak the language, and I am not wanting in courage."

"My dear sir, I really have no particular office to give you."

"Then, count, I wish you a pleasant sail; I am going to Rome. I hope you
may never repent of not taking me, for without me you will never pass the
Dardanelles."

"Is that a prophecy?"

"It's an oracle."

"We will test its veracity, my dear Calchus."

Such was the short dialogue I had with the worthy count, who, as a matter
of fact, did not pass the Dardanelles. Whether he would have succeeded if
I had been on board is more than I can say.

Next day I delivered my letters to M. Rivarola and the English banker.
The squadron had sailed in the early morning.

The day after I went to Pisa, and spent a pleasant week in the company of
Father Stratico, who was made a bishop two or three years after by means
of a bold stroke that might have ruined him. He delivered a funeral
oration over Father Ricci, the last general of the Jesuits. The Pope,
Ganganelli, had the choice of punishing the writer and increasing the
odium of many of the faithful, or of rewarding him handsomely. The
sovereign pontiff followed the latter course. I saw the bishop some years
later, and he told me in confidence that he had only written the oration
because he felt certain, from his knowledge of the human heart, that his
punishment would be a great reward.

This clever monk initiated me into all the charms of Pisan society. He
had organized a little choir of ladies of rank, remarkable for their
intelligence and beauty, and had taught them to sing extempore to the
guitar. He had had them instructed by the famous Gorilla, who was crowned
poetess-laureate at the capitol by night, six years later. She was
crowned where our great Italian poets were crowned; and though her merit
was no doubt great, it was, nevertheless, more tinsel than gold, and not
of that order to place her on a par with Petrarch or Tasso.

She was satirised most bitterly aft