irass. I thought
him something like what I had been fifteen years ago, but as it seemed
unlikely that he had my resources I could not help pitying him.

Zanovitch paid me a visit, and told me that Medini's position had excited
his pity, and that he had therefore paid his debts.

I applauded his generosity, but I formed the conclusion that they had
laid some plot between them, and that I should soon hear of the results
of this new alliance.

I returned Zanovitch's call the next day. He was at table with his
mistress, whom I should not have recognized if she had not pronounced my
name directly she saw me.

As she had addressed me as Don Giacomo, I called her Donna Ippolita, but
in a voice which indicated that I was not certain of her identity. She
told me I was quite right.

I had supped with her at Naples in company with Lord Baltimore, and she
was very pretty then.

Zanovitch asked me to dine with him the following day, and I should have
thanked him and begged to be excused if Donna Ippolita had not pressed me
to come. She assured me that I should find good company there, and that
the cook would excel himself.

I felt rather curious to see the company, and with the idea of shewing
Zanovitch that I was not likely to become a charge on his purse, I
dressed myself magnificently once more.

As I had expected, I found Medini and his mistress there, with two
foreign ladies and their attendant cavaliers, and a fine-looking and
well-dressed Venetian, between thirty-five and forty, whom I would not
have recognized if Zanovitch had not told me his name, Alois Zen.

"Zen was a patrician name, and I felt obliged to ask what titles I ought
to give him.

"Such titles as one old friend gives another, though it is very possible
you do not recollect me, as I was only ten years old when we saw each
other last."

Zen then told me he was the son of the captain I had known when I was
under arrest at St. Andrews.

"That's twenty-eight years ago; but I remember you, though you had not
had the small-pox in those days."

I saw that he was annoyed by this remark, but it was his fault, as he had
no business to say where he had known me, or who his father was.

He was the son of a noble Venetian--a good-for-nothing in every sense of
the word.

When I met him at Florence he had just come from Madrid, where he had
made a lot of money by holding a bank at faro in the house of the
Venetian ambassador, Marco Zen.

I was glad to me