When I got home I sent the book by Costa to the Vatican, and then I went
to dine with Mengs. While we were eating the soup the winning numbers
from the lottery were brought in. My brother glanced at them and looked
at me with astonishment. I was not thinking of the subject at that
moment, and his gaze surprised me.

"Twenty-seven," he cried, "came out fifth."

"All the better," said I, "we shall have some amusement out of it."

I told the story to Mengs, who said,--

"It's a lucky folly for you this time; but it always is a folly."

He was quite right, and I told him that I agreed with him; but I added
that to make a worthy use of the fifteen hundred roman crowns which
fortune had given me, I should go and spend fifteen days at Naples.

"I will come too," said the Abbe Alfani. "I will pass for your
secretary."

"With all my heart," I answered, "I shall keep you to your word."

I asked Winckelmann to come and eat polenta with the scopatore
santissimo, and told my brother to shew him the way; and I then called on
the Marquis Belloni, my banker, to look into my accounts, and to get a
letter of credit on the firm at Naples, who were his agents. I still had
two hundred thousand francs: I had jewellery worth thirty thousand
francs, and fifty thousand florins at Amsterdam.