ung, for he was at the head of the Roman police, and I
verily believe knew more iniquity than the Pope himself. It would have
been against all nature and precedent if I had not become his dear friend
and _protege_, which I did accordingly, for I liked him very much indeed,
and Heaven knows that such a rum couple of friends as Giuseppe Navone and
myself, when out walking together, could not at that time have been found
in Europe.

It may here be observed that I was decidedly getting on in the quality of
my Mentors, for, as regarded morals and humanity, my old pirate and
slaver friend was truly as a lamb and an angel of light compared to
Navone. And I will further indicate, as this book will prove, that if I
was not at the age of twenty-three the most accomplished young scoundrel
in all Europe, it was not for want of such magnificent opportunities and
friends as few men ever enjoyed. But it was always my fate to neglect or
to be unable to profit by advantages, as, for instance, in mathematics;
nor in dishonesty did I succeed one whit better, which may be the reason
why the two are somehow dimly connected in my mind. Here I think I see
the unfathomable smile in the eye of Professor Dodd (it never got down to
his lips), who was the incarnate soul of purity and honour. But then the
banker, E. Fenzi, who swindled me out of nearly 500 francs, was an
arithmetician, and I write under a sense of recent wrong. How this loss,
and Fenzi's failure, flight, and the fuss which it all caused in
Florence, were accurately foretold me by a witch, may be read in detail
in my "Etrusco-Roman Remains in Tuscan Tradition." London: T. Fisher
Unwin.

My landlady was a very zealous Catholic, and tried to convert me. This
was a new experience, and I enjoyed it. I proved malleable. So she
called in a Jesuit priest to perfect the work. I listened with deep
interest to his worn-out _fade_ arguments, made a few points of feeble
objection for form's sake, yielded, and met him more than half way. But
somehow he never called again. _Latet anguis in herba_--my grass was
rather too green, I suppose. I was rather sorry, for I expected some
amusement. But I had been _too_ deep for the Jesuit--and for myself.

The time came for my departure. I was to go alone on to Florence, in
advance of my friends. Navone arranged everything nicely for me: I was
to go by diligence on to Civita Vecchia, where I was to call on a
relative of his, who kept a b