louis which I had given Talvis, so I cut in. I had a run of bad luck and
lost a hundred ducats, but, as usual, my loss only excited me. I wished
to regain what I had lost, so I stayed to supper, and afterwards, with
better luck, won back my money. I was content to stop at this, and to let
the money I had paid to Talvis go, so I asked Piccolomini to pay me,
which he did with a bill of exchange on an Amsterdam bank drawn by a firm
in Middlesburg. At first I made some difficulty in taking it, on the
pretext that it would be difficult to negotiate, but he promised to let
me have the money next day, and I had to give in.

I made haste to leave this cut-throat place, after refusing to lend
Talvis a hundred Louis, which he wanted to borrow of me on the strength
of the revenge I owed him. He was in a bad humour, both on this account
and because he had lost the hundred Louis I had paid him, and he allowed
himself to use abusive language, which I treated with contempt. I went to
bed, promising myself never to set foot in such a place again.

The next morning, however, I went out with the intention of calling on
Piccolomini to get the bill of exchange cashed, but on my way I happened
to go into a coffee-house and to meet Rigerboos, Therese's friend, whose
acquaintance the reader has already made. After greeting each other, and
talking about Therese, who was now in London and doing well, I skewed him
my bill, telling him the circumstances under which I had it. He looked at
it closely, and said,

"It's a forgery, and the original from which it was copied was honoured
yesterday."

He saw that I could scarcely believe it, and told me to come with him to
be convinced of the truth of what he said.