"Above all I would ask you to consider that, should you reject the
gracious proposal of the Supreme Council, the fulfilment of your dearest
wish--your return to Venice--is likely to be postponed for a long and I
fear for an indefinite period; and that I myself, if I may allude to the
matter, as an old man of eighty-one, should be compelled in all human
probability to renounce the pleasing prospect of ever seeing you again
in this life.

"Since, for obvious reasons, your appointment will be of a confidential
and not of a public nature, I beg you to address to me personally your
reply, for which I make myself responsible, and which I wish to present
to the Council at its next sitting a week hence. Act with all convenient
speed, for, as I have previously explained, we are daily receiving
offers from thoroughly trustworthy persons who, from patriotic
motives, voluntarily place themselves at the disposal of the Supreme
Council. Nevertheless, there is hardly one among them who can compare
with you, my dear Casanova, in respect of experience or intelligence.
If, in addition to all the arguments I have adduced, you take my
personal feelings into account, I find it difficult to doubt that you
will gladly respond to the call which now reaches you from so exalted
and so friendly a source.

"Till then, receive the assurances of my undying friendship.

"BRAGADINO."

"Postscript. Immediately upon receipt of your acceptance, it will be a
pleasure to me to send you a remittance of two hundred lire through the
banking firm of Valori in Mantua. The sum is to defray the cost of your
journey.