ordingly, I
summoned my messmates, told them my resolution, resigned my command,
and persuaded them to depart. They were good fellows, engaged with a
Dutchman, against whom I heard afterwards they made a successful mutiny,
but I never saw them more. I had two thousand crowns still left; with
this sum I obtained the consent of the silk-mercer, and it was agreed
that I should become a partner in the firm. I need not say that no one
suspected that I had been so great a man, and I passed for a Neapolitan
goldsmith's son instead of a cardinal's. I was very happy then, signor,
very,--I could not have harmed a fly! Had I married Clara, I had been as
gentle a mercer as ever handled a measure."

The bravo paused a moment, and it was easy to see that he felt more than
his words and tone betokened. "Well, well, we must not look back at the
past too earnestly,--the sunlight upon it makes one's eyes water. The
day was fixed for our wedding,--it approached. On the evening before the
appointed day, Clara, her mother, her little sister, and myself, were
walking by the port; and as we looked on the sea, I was telling them
old gossip-tales of mermaids and sea-serpents, when a red-faced,
bottle-nosed Frenchman clapped himself right before me, and, placing his
spectacles very deliberately astride his proboscis, echoed out, 'Sacre,
mille tonnerres! this is the damned pirate who boarded the "Niobe"!'"

"'None of your jests,' said I, mildly. 'Ho, ho!' said he; 'I can't be
mistaken; help there!' and he griped me by the collar. I replied, as
you may suppose, by laying him in the kennel; but it would not do. The
French captain had a French lieutenant at his back, whose memory was as
good as his chief's. A crowd assembled; other sailors came up: the
odds were against me. I slept that night in prison; and in a few weeks
afterwards I was sent to the galleys. They spared my life, because the
old Frenchman politely averred that I had made my crew spare his. You
may believe that the oar and the chain were not to my taste. I and two
others escaped; they took to the road, and have, no doubt, been long
since broken on the wheel. I, soft soul, would not commit another crime
to gain my bread, for Clara was still at my heart with her sweet eyes;
so, limiting my rogueries to the theft of a beggar's rags, which I
compensated by leaving him my galley attire instead, I begged my way
to the town where I left Clara. It was a clear winter's day when I
approached