nding to
his words found themselves, as the Italians say, with only flies in
their hands.

The stupidity of many of the common people in regard to these numbers is
wonderful. When the number drawn is next to the number they have, they
console themselves with thinking that they were within one of it,--as if
in such cases a miss were not as bad as a mile. But when the number
drawn is a multiple of the one they play, it is a sympathetic number,
and is next door to winning; and if the number come reversed,--as if,
having played 12, it come out 21,--he laughs with delight. "Eh, don't
you see, you stupid fellow," said the _speziale_ of a village one day to
a dunce of a _contadino_, of whose infallible _terno_ not a single
number had been drawn,--"Don't you see, in substance all your three
numbers have been drawn? and it's shameful in you to be discontented.
Here you have played 8--44--26, and instead of these have been drawn
7--11--62. Well! just observe! Your 8 is just within one point of being
7; your 44 is in substance 11, for 4 times 11 are 44 exactly; and your
26 is nothing more or less than precisely 62 reversed;--what would you
ask more?" And by his own mode of reasoning, the poor _contadino_ sees
as clearly as possible that he has really won,--only the difficulty is
that he cannot touch the prize without correcting the little variations.
_Ma, pazienza!_ he came so near this time, that he will be sure to win
the next,--and away he goes to hunt out more sympathetic numbers, and to
rejoice with his friends on coming so near winning.

Dreams of numbers are, of course, very frequent,--and are justly much
prized. Yet one must know how to use them, and be brave and bold, or the
opportunity is lost. I myself once dreamt of having gained a _terno_ in
the lottery, but was fool enough not to play it,--and in consequence
lost a prize, the very numbers coming up in the next drawing. The next
time I have such a dream, of course I shall play; but perhaps I shall be
too late, and only lose. And this recalls to my mind a story, which may
serve as a warning to the timid and an encouragement to the bold. An
Englishman, who had lived on bad terms with a very quarrelsome and
annoying wife, (according to his own account, of course,) had finally
the luck, I mean the misfortune, to lose her. He had lived long enough
in Italy, however, to say "_Pazienza_" and buried his sorrows and his
wife in the same grave. But, after the lapse of some tim