Zanovitch won from Zen what Zen won from the lord, and so the game was kept up till the young pigeon had lost the enormous sum of twelve thousand guineas.
Lord Lincoln promised to pay three thousand guineas the next day, and signed three bills of exchange for three thousand guineas each, payable in six months, and drawn on his London banker.
I heard all about this from Lord Lincoln himself when we met at Bologna three months later.
The next morning the little gaming party was the talk of Florence. Sasso Sassi, the banker, had already paid Zanovitch six thousand sequins by my lord’s orders.
Medini came to see me, furious at not having been asked to join the party, while I congratulated myself on my absence. My surprise may be imagined, when, a few days after, a person came up to my room, and ordered me to leave Florence in three days and Tuscany in a week.
I was petrified, and called to my landlord to witness the unrighteous order I had received.
It was December 28th. On the same date, three years before, I had received orders to leave Barcelona in three days.
I dressed hastily and went to the magistrate to enquire the reason for my exile, and on entering the room I found it was the same man who had ordered me to leave Florence eleven years before.
I asked him to give me his reasons, and he replied coldly that such was the will of his highness.
“But as his highness must have his reasons, it seems to me that I am within my rights in enquiring what they are.”