Time flew swiftly on--a month, six weeks, passed, and during that short space I had established myself in Naples as a great personage--great, because of my wealth and the style in which I lived.

No one in all the numerous families of distinction that eagerly sought my acquaintance cared whether I had intellect or intrinsic personal worth; it sufficed to them that I kept a carriage and pair, an elegant and costly equipage, softly lined with satin and drawn by two Arabian mares as black as polished ebony.

The value of my friendship was measured by the luxuriousness of my box at the opera, and by the dainty fittings of my yacht, a swift trim vessel furnished with every luxury, and having on board a band of stringed instruments which discoursed sweet music when the moon emptied her horn of silver radiance on the rippling water.

In a little while I knew everybody who was worth knowing in Naples; everywhere my name was talked of, my doings were chronicled in the fashionable newspapers; stories of my lavish generosity were repeated from mouth to mouth, and the most highly colored reports of my immense revenues were whispered with a kind of breathless awe at every cafe and street corner.

Tradesmen waylaid my reticent valet, Vincenzo, and gave him douceurs in the hope he would obtain my custom for them--"tips" which he pocketed in his usual reserved and discreet manner, but which he was always honest enough to tell me of afterward.