It would be no harder task to unwind a mummy, than to unroll and unriddle _thee_, old rogue, in thy endless windings and detours! "Have no dealings with A----," said that _timid_ rogue, the Florentine attorney R----; "the man is so gigantic a cheat, that he frightens me!" "and cunning to a degree" was D----'s account of him. "He is up to a thing or two," said S----, looking knowing, and putting his finger, like Harpocrates, to his mouth, that it went no further. A brother dealer called him a Hebrew; another (himself as sly as any fox) admitted that he had been overreached by him. His name, whenever mentioned, seldom failed to call forth a smile, or a shrug, in those who had not dealt with him; and a thundering oath against his German blood in those that had. Mr A---- was therefore too remarkable a man for us, ourself an incipient collector, not to visit; and so, as soon as we got to Naples, we dispatched a note, and the next day followed it in person; rang at the bell, and were ushered into his sanctum; where we beheld the old _necromancer_ standing at his table, looking out for us. He put down his eyeglass and his old coin; and said in answer to our question, which was in English, "Ya! ya! mein name is A----." Forgetting at this moment what R---- had said of him, and only recollecting that they were acquainted, we began, by way of introducing ourselves to his best things, to say, that we had lately seen his friend R---- at Rome--"Dat is not mein friend, dat is mein enemy," said he, displeased at our mentioning the name; and looking at us half suspiciously, half spitefully. "I hav notin to say wit him more," and he took a huge pinch of snuff, and wasted a deal on his snuffy waistcoat and shirt frill. We at once saw our mistake, which indeed, but for our anxiety to get to business, we should not, assuredly, have been guilty of. We had now to make the best of it. "A mistake, Mr. A----, we assure you. Mr. R---- might say that, on _one_ occasion, you _had_ been _brusque_ with him; but advised us, notwithstanding, to pay you a visit, regretting that, from some little difference between you, _he_ could not give us the introduction, which, under more favourable circumstances, he would have pressed upon us;" an announcement which completely mollified the old rogue, who, in his heart of hearts, was thinking that a new victim had turned up to him, and one of Rusca's recommending. "It is pleasant to make peace between two honest men," said we; "Rusca and you should not have quarrelled. Ill-natured people take advantage of these disputes, and begin to profess open distrust as to the age and genuineness of whatever you sell." "For dis reason I hate not Mr Rusca; but he has too much _strepitusness_ of voice--_il s'emporte trop facilement_." "Ah," interpose we in the mediatorial capacity we had assumed, "'tis the character of the Italian to do so." "Ya, dat is true," assented he; and then we went to look at his coins. "We are not blind friends of