necessary for my arrest, though, according to the axiom 'Ne Hercules
quidem contra duos', two would have been enough. It is curious that in
London, where everyone is brave, only one man is needed to arrest
another, whereas in my dear native land, where cowardice prevails, thirty
are required. The reason is, perhaps, that the coward on the offensive is
more afraid than the coward on the defensive, and thus a man usually
cowardly is transformed for the moment into a man of courage. It is
certain that at Venice one often sees a man defending himself against
twenty sbirri, and finally escaping after beating them soundly. I
remember once helping a friend of mine at Paris to escape from the hands
of forty bum-bailiffs, and we put the whole vile rout of them to flight.

Messer-Grande made me get into a gondola, and sat down near me with an
escort of four men. When we came to our destination he offered me coffee,
which I refused; and he then shut me up in a room. I passed these four
hours in sleep, waking up every quarter of an hour to pass water--an
extraordinary occurrence, as I was not at all subject to stranguary; the
heat was great, and I had not supped the evening before. I have noticed
at other times that surprise at a deed of oppression acts on me as a
powerful narcotic, but I found out at the time I speak of that great
surprise is also a diuretic. I make this discovery over to the doctors,
it is possible that some learned man may make use of it to solace the
ills of humanity. I remember laughing very heartily at Prague six years
ago, on learning that some thin-skinned ladies, on reading my flight from
The Leads, which was published at that date, took great offence at the
above account, which they thought I should have done well to leave out. I
should have left it out, perhaps, in speaking to a lady, but the public
is not a pretty woman whom I am intent on cajoling, my only aim is to be
instructive. Indeed, I see no impropriety in the circumstance I have
narrated, which is as common to men and women as eating and drinking; and