me.

"Then," said I, "I shall have him arrested as an escaped galley slave, in
which character I have given him alms, and for wearing without the right
to do so the uniform of an officer, thereby disgracing the whole army.
And pray what outrage can I have committed against girls who live in a
brothel, and whom I have paid according to their deserts?"

"If what you say is true you are quite right, but this poor devil is in a
desperate situation; he wants to leave the country, and does not possess
a single florin. I advise you to give him an alms once more, and you will
have done with him. Two score florins will not make you any the poorer,
and will rid you of a villainous enemy."

"A most villainous one, I think." At last I agreed to give him the forty
florins, and I handed them to him in a coffee-house where the major told
me I should find him. The reader will see how I met this blackguard four
months later.

Now, when all these troubles have been long over and I can think over
them calmly, reflecting on the annoyances I experienced at Amsterdam,
where I might have been so happy, I am forced to admit that we ourselves
are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so
unreasonably complain. If I could live my life over again, should I be
wiser? Perhaps; but then I should not be myself.

M. d'O---- asked me to sup with him at the Burgomasters' Lodge, and this
was a great distinction, for, contrary to the rules of Freemasonry, no
one but the twenty-four members who compose the lodge is admitted, and
these twenty-four masons were the richest men on the Exchange.