And I shewed him the dread ‘bolletta’, the sight of which made him lower his tone; but he told me that, even if he supplied me with horses, I had treated the postillion so badly that not one of his men would drive me.  “If that is the case,” I answered, “you shall accompany me yourself.”  The fellow laughed in my face, turned his back upon me, and went away.  I took two witnesses, and I called with them at the office of a public notary, who drew up a properly-worded document, by which I gave notice to the post-master that I should expect an indemnity of ten sequins for each hour of delay until I had horses supplied to me.

As soon as he had been made acquainted with the contents of this, he gave orders to bring out two restive horses.  I saw at once that his intention was to have me upset along the road, and perhaps thrown into the river; but I calmly told the postillion that at the very moment my chaise was upset I would blow his brains out with a pistol-shot; this threat frightened the man; he took his horses back to the stables, and declared to his master that he would not drive me.  At that very moment a courier arrived, who called for six carriage horses and two saddle ones.  I warned the post-master that no one should leave the place before me, and that if he opposed my will there would be a sanguinary contest; in order to prove that I was in earnest I took out my pistols.  The fellow began to swear, but, everyone saying that he was in the wrong, he disappeared.

Five minutes afterwards whom should I see, arriving in a beautiful berlin drawn by six horses, but Croce with his wife, a lady’s maid, and two lackeys in grand livery.  He alighted, we embraced one another, and I told him, assuming an air of sadness, that he could not leave before me.  I explained how the case stood; he said I was right, scolded loudly, as if he had been a great lord, and made everybody tremble.  The postmaster had disappeared; his wife came and ordered the postillions to attend to my wants.  During that time Croce said to me that I was quite right in going back to Padua, where the public rumour had spread the report of my having left the city in consequence of an order from the police.  He informed me that the podesta had likewise expelled M. de Gondoin, a colonel in the service of the Duke of Modena, because he held a faro bank at his house.  I promised him to pay him a visit in Venice in the ensuing week.  Croce, who had dropped from the sky to assist me in a moment of great distress, had won ten thousand sequins in four evenings:  I had received five thousand for my share; and lost no time in paying my debts and in redeeming all the articles which I had been compelled to pledge.  That scamp brought me back the smiles of Fortune, and from that moment I got rid of the ill luck which had seemed to fasten on me.