writing of P---- C----. He asked me to pay him a visit at the "Star
Hotel," where he would give me some interesting information. Thinking
that he might have something to say concerning his sister, I went to him
at once.

I found him with Madame C----, and after congratulating him upon his
release from prison I asked him for the news he had to communicate.

"I am certain," he said, "that my sister is in a convent, and I shall be
able to tell you the name of it when I return to Venice."

"You will oblige me," I answered, pretending not to know anything.

But his news had only been a pretext to make me come to him, and his
eagerness to communicate it had a very different object in view than the
gratification of my curiosity.

"I have sold," he said to me, "my privileged contract for three years for
a sum of fifteen thousand florins, and the man with whom I have made the
bargain took me out of prison by giving security for me, and advanced me
six thousand florins in four letters of exchange."

He shewed me the letters of exchange, endorsed by a name which I did not
know, but which he said was a very good one, and he continued,

"I intend to buy six thousand florins worth of silk goods from the looms
of Vicenza, and to give in payment to the merchants these letters of
exchange. I am certain of selling those goods rapidly with a profit of
ten per cent. Come with us to Vicenza; I will give you some of my goods
to the amount of two hundred sequins, and thus you will find yourself