I listened and was weary, for all they said was so full of technicalities that I could not follow the meaning; and if silence can ever be imposing, my determined silence of an hour and a half’s duration ought to have made me seem a very important personage in the eyes of these gentlemen.  At last, just as I was beginning to yawn, dinner was announced, and I was another hour and a half without opening my mouth, except to do honour to an excellent repast.  Directly the dessert had been served, M. du Vernai asked me to follow him into a neighbouring apartment, and to leave the other guests at the table.  I followed him, and we crossed a hall where we found a man of good aspect, about fifty years old, who followed us into a closet and was introduced to me by M. du Vernai under the name of Calsabigi.  Directly after, two superintendents of the treasury came in, and M. du Vernai smilingly gave me a folio book, saying,

“That, I think, M. Casanova, is your plan.”

I took the book and read, Lottery consisting of ninety tickets, to be drawn every month, only one in eighteen to be a winning number.  I gave him back the book and said, with the utmost calmness,

“I confess, sir, that is exactly my idea.”

“You have been anticipated, then; the project is by M. de Calsabigi here.”

“I am delighted, not at being anticipated, but to find that we think alike; but may I ask you why you have not carried out the plan?”

“Several very plausible reasons have been given against it, which have had no decisive answers.”

“I can only conceive one reason against it,” said I, coolly; “perhaps the king would not allow his subjects to gamble.”

“Never mind that, the king will let his subjects gamble as much as they like:  the question is, will they gamble?”

“I wonder how anyone can have any doubt on that score, as the winners are certain of being paid.”

“Let us grant, then, that they will gamble:  how is the money to be found?”

“How is the money to be found?  The simplest thing in the world.  All you want is a decree in council authorizing you to draw on the treasury.  All I want is for the nation to believe that the king can afford to pay a hundred millions.”

“A hundred millions!”

“Yes, a hundred millions, sir.  We must dazzle people.”

“But if France is to believe that the Crown can afford to pay a hundred millions, it must believe that the Crown can afford to lose a hundred millions, and who is going to believe that?  Do you?”

“To be sure I do, for the Crown, before it could lose a hundred millions, would have received at least a hundred and fifty millions, and so there need be no anxiety on that score.”

“I am not the only person who has doubts on the subject.  You must grant the possibility of the Crown losing an enormous sum at the first drawing?”

“Certainly, sir, but between possibility and reality is all the region of the infinite.  Indeed, I may say that it would be a great piece of good fortune if the Crown were to lose largely on the first drawing.”