I seized the opportunity, when all my guests were engaged with each other, to open Possano’s letter.  It ran as follows: 

“I went to the bank to change the piece of gold you gave me.  It was weighed, and found to be ten carats under weight.  I was told to name the person from whom I got it, but of course I did not do so.  I then had to go to prison, and if you do not get me out of the scrape I shall be prosecuted, though of course I am not going to get myself hanged for anybody.”

I gave the letter to Grimaldi, and when we had left the table he took me aside, and said,—­

“This is a very serious matter, for it may end in the gallows for the man who clipped the coin.”

“Then they can hang the biribanti!  That won’t hurt me much.”

“No, that won’t do; it would compromise Madame Isola-Bella, as biribi is strictly forbidden.  Leave it all to me, I will speak to the State Inquisitors about it.  Tell Possano to persevere in his silence, and that you will see him safely through.  The laws against coiners and clippers are only severe with regard to these particular coins, as the Government has special reasons for not wishing them to be depreciated.”

I wrote to Possano, and sent for a pair of scales.  We weighed the gold I had won at biribi, and every single piece had been clipped.  M. Grimaldi said he would have them defaced and sold to a jeweller.

When we got back to the dining-room we found everybody at play.  M. Grimaldi proposed that I should play at quinze with him.  I detested the game, but as he was my guest I felt it would be impolite to refuse, and in four hours I had lost five hundred sequins.

Next morning the marquis told me that Possano was out of prison, and that he had been given the value of the coin.  He brought me thirteen hundred sequins which had resulted from the sale of the gold.  We agreed that I was to call on Madame Isola-Bella the next day, when he would give me my revenge at quinze.

I kept the appointment, and lost three thousand sequins.  I paid him a thousand the next day, and gave him two bills of exchange, payable by myself, for the other two thousand.  When these bills were presented I was in England, and being badly off I had to have them protested.  Five years later, when I was at Barcelona, M. de Grimaldi was urged by a traitor to have me imprisoned, but he knew enough of me to be sure that if I did not meet the bills it was from sheer inability to do so.  He even wrote me a very polite letter, in which he gave the name of my enemy, assuring me that he would never take any steps to compel me to pay the money.  This enemy was Possano, who was also at Barcelona, though I was not aware of his presence.  I will speak of the circumstance in due time, but I cannot help remarking that all who aided me in my pranks with Madame d’Urfe proved traitors, with the exception of a Venetian girl, whose acquaintance the reader will make in the following chapter.