Zanovitch that I was not likely to become a charge on his purse, I
dressed myself magnificently once more.

As I had expected, I found Medini and his mistress there, with two
foreign ladies and their attendant cavaliers, and a fine-looking and
well-dressed Venetian, between thirty-five and forty, whom I would not
have recognized if Zanovitch had not told me his name, Alois Zen.

"Zen was a patrician name, and I felt obliged to ask what titles I ought
to give him.

"Such titles as one old friend gives another, though it is very possible
you do not recollect me, as I was only ten years old when we saw each
other last."

Zen then told me he was the son of the captain I had known when I was
under arrest at St. Andrews.

"That's twenty-eight years ago; but I remember you, though you had not
had the small-pox in those days."

I saw that he was annoyed by this remark, but it was his fault, as he had
no business to say where he had known me, or who his father was.

He was the son of a noble Venetian--a good-for-nothing in every sense of
the word.

When I met him at Florence he had just come from Madrid, where he had
made a lot of money by holding a bank at faro in the house of the
Venetian ambassador, Marco Zen.