They were respectably connected--their words carried weight--and for a time I was an object of their maliciously pious fears.

I was destined, according to their calculations, to be a gambler, a spendthrift, a drunkard, an incurable roue of the most abandoned character.

Yet, strange to say, I became none of these things.

Though a Neapolitan, with all the fiery passions and hot blood of my race, I had an innate scorn for the contemptible vices and low desires of the unthinking vulgar.

Gambling seemed to me a delirious folly--drink, a destroyer of health and reason--and licentious extravagance an outrage on the poor.