without shaming the lady, and they
knew it; monks are adepts at such calculations.

I have travelled all over Europe, but France is the only country in which
I saw a decent and respectable clergy.

At the end of a quarter of an hour I could contain myself no longer, and
told the aunt that I wished to say something to her in private. I thought
the two satyrs would have taken the hint, but I counted without my host.
The aunt arose, however, and took me into the next room.

I asked my question as delicately as possible, and she replied,--

"Alas! I have only too great a need of twenty ducats (about eighty
francs) to pay my rent."

I gave her the money on the spot, and I saw that she was very grateful,
but I left her before she could express her feelings.

Here I must tell my readers (if I ever have any) of an event which took
place on that same day.

As I was dining in my room by myself, I was told that a Venetian
gentleman who said he knew me wished to speak to me.

I ordered him to be shewn in, and though his face was not wholly unknown
to me I could not recollect who he was.

He was tall, thin and wretched, misery and hunger spewing plainly in his
every feature; his beard was long, his head shaven, his robe a dingy
brown, and bound about him with a coarse cord, whence hung a rosary and a
dirty handkerchief. In the left hand he bore a basket, and in the right a
long stick; his form is still before me, but I think of him not as a
humble penitent, but as a being in the last state of desperation; almost
an assassin.

"Who are you?" I said at length. "I think I have seen you before, and yet
. . ."

"I will soon tell you my name and the story of my woes; but first give me
something to eat, for I am dying of hunger. I have had nothing but bad
soup for the last few days."

"Certainly; go downstairs and have your dinner, and then come back to me;
you can't eat and speak at the same time."

My man went down to give him his meal, and I gave instructions that I was
not to be left alone with him as he terrified me.

I felt sure that I ought to know him, and longed to hear his story.

In three quarters of an hour he came up again, looking like some one in a
high fever.

"Sit down," said I, "and speak freely."

"My name is Albergoni."

"What!"

Albergoni was a gentleman of Padua, and one of my most intimate friends
twenty-five years before. He was provided with a small fortune, but an
abundance of wit, and had