compassion. I said,--

"Do you know me, sir?"

"No, sir, I do not."

"I am Casanova, against whom you bore false witness; whom you tried to
cast into Newgate."

"I am very sorry, but look around you and say what choice have I? I have
no bread to give my children. I will do as much in your favour another
time for nothing."

"Are you not afraid of the gallows?"

"No, for perjury is not punished with death; besides it is very difficult
to prove."

"I have heard you are a poet."

"Yes. I have lengthened the Didone and abridged the Demetrio."

"You are a great poet, indeed!"

I felt more contempt than hatred for the rascal, and gave his wife a
guinea, for which she presented me with a wretched pamphlet by her
husband: "The Secrets of the Freemasons Displayed." Bottarelli had been a
monk in his native city, Pisa, and had fled to England with his wife, who
had been a nun.

About this time M. de Saa surprised me by giving me a letter from my fair
Portuguese, which confirmed the sad fate of poor Clairmont. Pauline said
she was married to Count Al----. I was astonished to hear M. de Saa
observe that he had known all about Pauline from the moment she arrived
in London. That is the hobby of all diplomatists; they like people to
believe that they are omniscient. However, M. de Saa was a man of worth
and talent, and one could excuse this weakness as an incident inseparable
from his profession; while most diplomatists only make themselves
ridiculous by their assumption of universal knowledge.

M. de Saa had been almost as badly treated by the Charpillon as myself,
and we might have condoled with one another, but the subject was not
mentioned.

A few days afterwards, as I was walking idly about, I passed a place
called the Parrot Market. As I was amusing myself by looking at these
curious birds, I saw a fine young one in a cage, and asked what language
it spoke. They told me that it was quite young and did not speak at all
yet, so I bought it for ten guineas. I thought I would teach the bird a
pretty speech, so I had the cage hung by my bed, and repeated dozens of
times every day the following sentence: "The Charpillon is a bigger wh--e
than her mother."

The only end I had in view was my private amusement, and in a fortnight
the bird had learnt the phrase with the utmost exactness; and every time
it uttered the words it accompanied them with a shriek of laughter which
I had not taught it, but which made me laugh mys