“If you will put three hundred sequins in my bank,” he added, “you shall be my partner.  I have three hundred sequins myself, but that is not enough because the punters play high.  Come and dine at my house, and you will make their acquaintance.  We can play next Friday as there will be no opera, and you may rely upon our winning plenty of gold, for a certain Gilenspetz, a Swede, may lose twenty thousand sequins.”

I was without any resources, or at all events I could expect no assistance except from M. de Bragadin upon whom I felt ashamed of encroaching.  I was well aware that the proposal made by Croce was not strictly moral, and that I might have chosen a more honourable society; but if I had refused, the purse of Madame Croce’s admirers would not have been more mercifully treated; another would have profited by that stroke of good fortune.  I was therefore not rigid enough to refuse my assistance as adjutant and my share of the pie; I accepted Croce’s invitation.

CHAPTER XIV

I Get Rich Again—­My Adventure At Dolo—­Analysis of a Long Letter From C. C.—­Mischievous Trick Played Upon Me By P. C.—­At Vincenza—­A Tragi-comedy At the Inn

Necessity, that imperious law and my only excuse, having made me almost the partner of a cheat, there was still the difficulty of finding the three hundred sequins required; but I postponed the task of finding them until after I should have made the acquaintance of the dupes of the goddess to whom they addressed their worship.  Croce took me to the Prato delta Valle, where we found madame surrounded with foreigners.  She was pretty; and as a secretary of the imperial ambassador, Count Rosemberg, had attached himself to her, not one of the Venetian nobles dared court her.  Those who interested me among the satellites gravitating around that star were the Swede Gilenspetz, a Hamburger, the Englishman Mendez, who has already been mentioned, and three or four others to whore Croce called my attention.

We dined all together, and after dinner there was a general call for a faro bank; but Croce did not accept.  His refusal surprised me, because with three hundred sequins, being a very skilful player, he had enough to try his fortune.  He did not, however, allow my suspicions to last long, for he took me to his own room and shewed me fifty pieces of eight, which were equal to three hundred sequins.  When I saw that the professional gambler had not chosen me as his partner with the intention of making a dupe of me, I told him that I would certainly procure the amount, and upon that promise he invited everybody to supper for the following day.  We agreed that we would divide the spoils before parting in the evening, and that no one should be allowed to play on trust.