after nine months.

I was extremely astonished by this greeting, and replied that if it were
not necessary I should not wear a sling, and that I was no charlatan.

"However," I added, "I have come to see you on a different matter."

"Yes, I know, but I will have nothing to do with it. You are all as bad
as Tomatis."

I gave a turn round and left the room without taking any further notice
of her. I returned home feeling overwhelmed by the situation. I had been
robbed and insulted by a band of thorough-paced rascals; I could do
nothing, justice was denied me, and now I had been made a mock of by a
worthless countess. If I had received such an insult from a man I would
have soon made him feel the weight of one arm at all events. I could not
bear my arm without a sling for an hour; pain and swelling set in
immediately. I was not perfectly cured till twenty months after the duel.

Count Vitzthum came to see me at seven o'clock. He said the empress had
told Prince Kaunitz that Schrotembach considered my narrative as pure
romance. His theory was that I had held a bank at faro with sharpers'
cards, and had dealt with both hands the arm in the sling being a mere
pretence. I had then been taken in the act by one of the gamesters, and
my unjust gains had been very properly taken from me. My detector had
then handed over my purse, containing forty ducats, to the police, and
the money had of course been confiscated. The empress had to choose
between believing Schrotembach and dismissing him; and she was not
inclined to do the latter, as it would be a difficult matter to find him
a successor in his difficult and odious task of keeping Vienna clear of