me home I lay down on my bed, not taking any dinner, and seeing
nothing of the three sisters till they had made everything ready for the
journey. I got up directly before they left, so as not to see the mother
in my own room, and I saw her in hers just as she was about to be taken
down into my carriage, which was in readiness at the door. The impudent
creature expected me to give her some money for the journey, but
perceiving that I was not likely to bleed, she observed, with involuntary
sincerity, that her purse contained the sum of a hundred and fifty
guineas, which I had given to her daughters; and these daughters of hers
were present, and sobbed bitterly.

When they were gone I closed my doors to everyone, and spent three days
in the melancholy occupation of making up my accounts. In the month I had
spent with the Hanoverians I had dissipated the whole of the sum
resulting from the sale of the precious stones, and I found that I was in
debt to the amount of four hundred guineas. I resolved to go to Lisbon by
sea, and sold my diamond cross, six or seven gold snuff-boxes (after
removing the portraits), all my watches except one, and two great trunks
full of clothes. I then discharged my debts and found I was eighty
guineas to the good, this being what remained of the fine fortune I had
squandered away like a fool or a philosopher, or, perhaps, a little like
both. I left my fine house where I had lived so pleasantly, and took a
little room at a guinea a week. I still kept my negro, as I had every
reason to believe him to be a faithful servant.

After taking these measures I wrote to M. de Bragadin, begging him to
send me two hundred sequins.

Thus having made up my mind to leave London without owing a penny to
anyone, and under obligations to no man's purse, I waited for the bill of
exchange from Venice. When it came I resolved to bid farewell to all my
friends and to try my fortune in Lisbon, but such was not the fate which
the fickle goddess had assigned to me.

A fortnight after the departure of the Hanoverians (it was the end of
February in the year 1764), my evil genius made me go to the "Canon
Tavern," where I usually dined in a room by myself. The table was laid
and I was just going to sit down, when Baron Stenau came in and begged me
to have my dinner brought into the next room, where he and his mistress
were dining.

"I thank you," said I, "for the solitary man grows weary of his company."

I saw the Eng