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 some letters. I guessed that he wanted to pump him
about me, and said that I needed his services all the day.

"Well, well," said the abbe, "another time will do." I gave him no
answer. Such is the character of the curious.

I am not referring to that curiosity which depends on the occult
sciences, and endeavours to pry into the future--the daughter of
ignorance and superstition, its victims are either foolish or ignorant.
But the Abbe Gama was neither; he was naturally curious, and his
employment made him still more so, for he was paid to find out
everything. He was a diplomatist; if he had been a little lower down in
the social scale he would have been treated as a spy.

He left me to pay some calls, promising to be back by dinner-time.

Dr. Vannini brought me another servant, of the same height as the first,
and engaged that he should obey orders and