"Why an idiot? Fortune is very fickle."
"It must necessarily be so; it is a natural consequence. Leave off playing, believe me, the very moment you see luck turning, even if you should, at that moment, win but one groat."
I had read Plato, and I was astonished at finding a man who could reason like Socrates.
The next day, Zawoiski called on me very early to tell me that I had been expected to supper, and that Count Rinaldi had praised my promptness in paying my debts of honour. I did not think it necessary to undeceive him, but I did not go again to Count Rinaldi's, whom I saw sixteen years afterwards in Milan. As to Zawoiski, I did not tell him the story till I met him in Carlsbad, old and deaf, forty years later.
Three or four months later, M. de Bragadin taught me another of his masterly lessons. I had become acquainted, through Zawoiski, with a Frenchman called L'Abbadie, who was then soliciting from the Venetian Government the appointment of inspector of the armies of the Republic. The senate appointed, and I presented him to my protector, who promised him his vote; but the circumstance I am going to relate prevented him from fulfilling his promise.
I was in need of one hundred sequins to discharge a few debts, and I begged M. de Bragadin to give them to me.
"Why, my dear son, do you not ask M. de l'Abbadie to render you that service?"
"I should not dare to do so, dear father."
"Try him; I am certain that he will be glad to lend you that sum."
"I doubt it, but I will try."