h a young man whom I recognized as
his brother, though he was very handsome and the marquis very ugly; but
the distinction between beauty and ugliness is often hard to point out.

This visit proved a very tedious one, for I had to listen to a long story
which did not interest me in the least.

As I was going out I was met by an official, who said another prisoner
wanted to speak to me.

"What's his name?"

"His name is Gaetano, and he says he is a relation of yours."

My relation and Gaetano! I thought it might be the abbe.

I went up to the first floor, and found a score of wretched prisoners
sitting on the ground roaring an obscene song in chorus.

Such gaiety is the last resource of men condemned to imprisonment on the
galleys; it is nature giving her children some relief.

One of the prisoners came up to me and greeted me as "gossip." He would
have embraced me, but I stepped back. He told me his name, and I
recognized in him that Gaetano who had married a pretty woman under my
auspices as her godfather. The reader may remember that I afterwards
helped her to escape from him.

"I am sorry to see you here, but what can I do for you?"

"You can pay me the hundred crowns you owe me, for the goods supplied to
you at Paris by me."

This was a lie, so I turned my back on him, saying I supposed
imprisonment had driven him mad.

As I went away I asked an official why he had been imprisoned, and was
told it was for forgery, and that he would have been hanged if it had not
been for a legal flaw. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life.

I dismissed him from my mind, but in the afternoon I had a visit from an
advocate who demanded a hundred crowns on Gaetano's behalf, supporting
his claim by the production of an immense ledger, where my name appeared
as debtor on several pages.

"Sir," said I, "the man is mad; I don't owe him anything, and the
evidence of this book is utterly worthless.

"You make a mistake, sir," he replied; "this ledger is good evidence, and
our laws deal very favorably with imprisoned creditors. I am retained for
them, and if you do not settle the matter by to-morrow I shall serve you
with a summons."

I restrained my indignation and asked him politely for his name and
address. He wrote it down directly, feeling quite certain that his affair
was as good as settled.

I called on Agatha, and her husband was much amused when I told my story.

He made me sign a power of attorney, empoweri