ess
Piccolomini.

I bit my lips with anger to find myself in such honourable company, but
putting a good face on a bad game I greeted everybody politely, and then
drawing a roll of a hundred Louis from my pocket I presented them to
Master Perine Talvis, telling him I was glad to be able to return them to
him with my best thanks.

My politeness did not meet with much of a reception, for the impudent
scoundrel answered me, as he pocketed the money, that he remembered
having lent it me at Presburg, but he also remembered a more important
matter.

"And pray what is that?" said I, in a dry and half-disdainful tone.

"You owe me a revenge at the sword's point, as you know right well. Here
is the mark of the gash you gave me seven years ago."

So saying, the wretched little man opened his shirt and shewed the small
round scar. This scene, which belonged more to farce than comedy, seemed
to have struck all tongues with paralysis.

"Anywhere else than in Holland, where important and delicate business
debars me from fighting, I shall be glad to meet you and mark you again,
if you still desire to cross swords with me; but while I am here I must
beg you not to disturb me. All the same, you may as well know that I
never go out without a couple of friends in my pockets, and that if you
attack me I shall blow your brains out in self-defence."

"My revenge must be with crossed swords," said he. "However, I will let
you finish your business."

"You will do wisely."

Piccolomini, who had been casting a hungry eye upon my hundred louis,
proposed immediately afterwards a bank at faro, and began to deal.
Prudence would have restrained me from playing in such company, but the
dictates of prudence were overcome by my desire to get back the hundred
louis which I had given Talvis, so I cut in. I had a run of bad luck and
lost a hundred ducats, but, as usual, my loss only excited me. I wished
to regain what I had lost, so I stayed to supper, and afterwards, with
better luck, won back my money. I was content to stop at this, and to let
the money I had paid to Talvis go, so I asked Piccolomini to pay me,
which he did with a bill of exchange on an Amsterdam bank drawn by a firm
in Middlesburg. At first I made some difficulty in taking it, on the
pretext that it would be difficult to negotiate, but he promised to let
me have the money next day, and I had to give in.

I made haste to leave this cut-throat place, after refusing to lend
Ta