escape with all I possessed, my poor chaise excepted. I had a difficult
task before me, but not so difficult a one as my flight from The Leads,
and the recollection of my great escape gave me fresh courage.

My first step was to ask Toscani, Baletti, and the dancer Binetti to
supper, as I had measures to concert with these friends of mine, whom I
could rely on, and who had nothing to fear from the resentment of three
rascals.

After we had had a good supper I told them how the affair stood, and that
I was determined to escape, and to carry my goods with me. "And now," I
said, "I want your advice."

After a brief silence Binetti said if I could get to his house I could
lower myself down from a window, and once on the ground I should be
outside the town walls and at a distance of a hundred paces from the high
road, by which I could travel post and be out of the duke's dominions by
daybreak. Thereupon Baletti opened the window and found that it would be
impossible to escape that way, on account of a wooden roof above a shop.
I looked out also, and seeing that he was right I said that I should no
doubt hit on some way of making my escape from the inn, but what troubled
me chiefly was my luggage. The Toscani then said:--

"You will have to abandon your mails, which you could not take off
without attracting attention, and you must send all your effects to my
house. I engage to deliver safely whatever you may put in my care. I will
take away your effects under my clothes in several journeys, and I can
begin to-night."

Baletti thought this idea a good one, and said that to do it the quicker