Jew
did not understand English at all, so he told me the latter part, when
he came into the room, in English, at which I smiled, which put the Jew
into his mad fit again, and shaking his head and making his devil's
faces again, he seemed to threaten me for laughing, saying, in French,
this was an affair I should have little reason to laugh at, and the
like. At this I laughed again, and flouted him, letting him see that I
scorned him, and turning to the Dutch merchant, "Sir," says I, "that
those jewels were belonging to Mr. ----, the English jeweller" (naming
his name readily), "in that," says I, "this person is right; but that I
should be questioned how I came to have them is a token of his
ignorance, which, however, he might have managed with a little more good
manners, till I told him who I am, and both he and you too will be more
easy in that part when I should tell you that I am the unhappy widow of
that Mr. ---- who was so barbarously murdered going to Versailles, and
that he was not robbed of those jewels, but of others, Mr. ---- having
left those behind him with me, lest he should be robbed. Had I, sir,
come otherwise by them, I should not have been weak enough to have
exposed them to sale here, where the thing was done, but have carried
them farther off."

This was an agreeable surprise to the Dutch merchant, who, being an
honest man himself, believed everything I said, which, indeed, being all
really and literally true, except the deficiency of my marriage, I spoke
with such an unconcerned easiness that it might plainly be seen that I
had no guilt upon me, as the Jew suggested.

The Jew was confounded when he heard that I was the jeweller's wife. But
as I had raised his passion with saying he looked at me with the devil's
face, he studied mischief in his heart, and answered, that should not
serve my turn; so called the Dutchman out again, when he told him that
he resolved to prosecute this matter farther.

There was one kind chance in this affair, which, indeed, was my
deliverance, and that was, that the fool could not restrain his passion,
but must let it fly to the Dutch merchant, to whom, when they withdrew a
second time, as above, he told that he would bring a process against me
for the murder, and that it should cost me dear for using him at that
rate; and away he went, desiring the Dutch merchant to tell him when I
would be there again. Had he suspected that the Dutchman would have
communicated the par