nine o'clock Madame Saxe came in, her lover was losing.

"Now, sir," she said to me, "you may fairly yield."

"Madam," said I, "in hope of pleasing you, I will gladly divide the
stakes and rise from the table."

The tone of exaggerated gallantry with which I pronounced these words,
put d'Entragues into a rage, and he answered sharply that he would not
desist till one of us was dead.

With a glance at the lady which was meant to be lovelorn, but which must
have been extremely languid in my exhausted state, I said,--

"You see, Madam, that I am not the more obstinate of the two."

A dish of soup was served to us, but d'Entragues, who was in the last
stage of exhaustion, had no sooner swallowed the soup than he fell from
his chair in a dead faint. He was soon taken up, and after I had given
six louis to the marker who had been watching for forty-eight hours, I
pocketed the gold, and went to the apothecary's where I took a mild
emetic. Afterwards I went to bed and slept for a few hours, and at three
o'clock I made an excellent dinner.

D'Entragues remained in his room till the next day. I expected a quarrel,
but the night brings counsel, and I made a mistake. As soon as he saw me
he ran up to me and embraced me, saying,--

"I made a silly bet, but you have given me a lesson which will last me
all my days, and I am much obliged to you for it."

"I am delighted to hear it, provided that your health has not suffered."

"No, I am quite well, but we will play no more together."

"Well, I hope we shan't play against each other any more."

In the course of eight or ten days I took Madame d'Urfe and the pretended
Lascaris to Bale. We put up at the inn of the famous Imhoff, who swindled
us, but, all the same, the "Three Kings" is the best inn in the town. I
think I have noted that noon at Bale is at eleven o'clock--an absurdity
due to some historic event, which I had explained to me but have
forgotten. The inhabitants are said to be subject to a kind of madness,
of which they are cured by taking the waters of Sulzbach; but they 'get
it again as soon as they return.

We should have stayed at Bale some time, if it had not been for an
incident which made me hasten our departure. It was as follows:

My necessities had obliged me to forgive the Corticelli to a certain
extent, and when I came home early I spent the night with her; but when I
came home late, as often happened, I slept in my own room. The little
hussy, in the