You have already guessed, I have no doubt, the purpose of this lengthy argument.  The sagacious man, believe me, can never be utterly miserable, and I most willingly agree with my friend Horace, who says that, on the contrary, such a man is always happy.

   ‘Nisi quum pituita molesta est.’

But, pray where is the man who is always suffering from a rheum?

The fact is that the fearful night I passed in the guardhouse of St. Mary resulted for me in a slight loss and in a great gain.  The small loss was to be away from my dear Therese, but, being certain of seeing her within ten days, the misfortune was not very great:  as to the gain, it was in experience the true school for a man.  I gained a complete system against thoughtlessness, a system of foresight.  You may safely bet a hundred to one that a young man who has once lost his purse or his passport, will not lose either a second time.  Each of those misfortunes has befallen me once only, and I might have been very often the victim of them, if experience had not taught me how much they were to be dreaded.  A thoughtless fellow is a man who has not yet found the word dread in the dictionary of his life.

The officer who relieved my cross-grained Castilian on the following day seemed of a different nature altogether; his prepossessing countenance pleased me much.  He was a Frenchman, and I must say that I have always liked the French, and never the Spaniards; there is in the manners of the first something so engaging, so obliging, that you feel attracted towards them as towards a friend, whilst an air of unbecoming haughtiness gives to the second a dark, forbidding countenance which certainly does not prepossess in their favour.  Yet I have often been duped by Frenchmen, and never by Spaniards—­a proof that we ought to mistrust our tastes.

The new officer, approaching me very politely, said to me,—­

“To what chance, reverend sir, am I indebted for the honour of having you in my custody?”

Ah! here was a way of speaking which restored to my lungs all their elasticity!  I gave him all the particulars of my misfortune, and he found the mishap very amusing.  But a man disposed to laugh at my disappointment could not be disagreeable to me, for it proved that the turn of his mind had more than one point of resemblance with mine.  He gave me at once a soldier to serve me, and I had very quickly a bed, a table, and a few chairs.  He was kind enough to have my bed placed in his own room, and I felt very grateful to him for that delicate attention.

He gave me an invitation to share his dinner, and proposed a game of piquet afterwards, but from the very beginning he saw that I was no match for him; he told me so, and he warned me that the officer who would relieve him the next day was a better player even than he was himself; I lost three or four ducats.  He advised me to abstain from playing on the following day, and I followed his advice.  He told me also