"Do you know me, sir?"
"No, sir, I do not."
"I am Casanova, against whom you bore false witness; whom you tried to cast into Newgate."
"I am very sorry, but look around you and say what choice have I? I have no bread to give my children. I will do as much in your favour another time for nothing."
"Are you not afraid of the gallows?"
"No, for perjury is not punished with death; besides it is very difficult to prove."
"I have heard you are a poet."
"Yes. I have lengthened the Didone and abridged the Demetrio."
"You are a great poet, indeed!"
I felt more contempt than hatred for the rascal, and gave his wife a guinea, for which she presented me with a wretched pamphlet by her husband: "The Secrets of the Freemasons Displayed." Bottarelli had been a monk in his native city, Pisa, and had fled to England with his wife, who had been a nun.