“Why an idiot?  Fortune is very fickle.”

“It must necessarily be so; it is a natural consequence.  Leave off playing, believe me, the very moment you see luck turning, even if you should, at that moment, win but one groat.”

I had read Plato, and I was astonished at finding a man who could reason like Socrates.

The next day, Zawoiski called on me very early to tell me that I had been expected to supper, and that Count Rinaldi had praised my promptness in paying my debts of honour.  I did not think it necessary to undeceive him, but I did not go again to Count Rinaldi’s, whom I saw sixteen years afterwards in Milan.  As to Zawoiski, I did not tell him the story till I met him in Carlsbad, old and deaf, forty years later.

Three or four months later, M. de Bragadin taught me another of his masterly lessons.  I had become acquainted, through Zawoiski, with a Frenchman called L’Abbadie, who was then soliciting from the Venetian Government the appointment of inspector of the armies of the Republic.  The senate appointed, and I presented him to my protector, who promised him his vote; but the circumstance I am going to relate prevented him from fulfilling his promise.

I was in need of one hundred sequins to discharge a few debts, and I begged M. de Bragadin to give them to me.

“Why, my dear son, do you not ask M. de l’Abbadie to render you that service?”

“I should not dare to do so, dear father.”

“Try him; I am certain that he will be glad to lend you that sum.”

“I doubt it, but I will try.”

I called upon L’Abbadie on the following day, and after a short exchange of compliments I told him the service I expected from his friendship.  He excused himself in a very polite manner, drowning his refusal in that sea of commonplaces which people are sure to repeat when they cannot or will not oblige a friend.  Zawoiski came in as he was still apologizing, and I left them together.  I hurried at once to M. de Bragadin, and told him my want of success.  He merely remarked that the Frenchman was deficient in intelligence.

It just happened that it was the very day on which the appointment of the inspectorship was to be brought before the senate.  I went out to attend to my business (I ought to say to my pleasure), and as I did not return home till after midnight I went to bed without seeing my father.  In the morning I said in his presence that I intended to call upon L’Abbadie to congratulate him upon his appointment.

“You may spare yourself that trouble; the senate has rejected his nomination.”

“How so?  Three days ago L’Abbadie felt sure of his success.”

“He was right then, for he would have been appointed if I had not made up my mind to speak against him.  I have proved to the senate that a right policy forbade the government to trust such an important post to a foreigner.”

“I am much surprised, for your excellency was not of that opinion the day before yesterday.”