All was now ready for the momentous operation, but it must be approached with extreme caution. It was possible, certain indeed, that by long and patient labour a practicable hole might be made in the floor, but how to guard against the discovery of the work while in progress? It would probably occupy a couple of months at least, and how were the soldiers who waited upon the prisoners to be prevented from sweeping the floor during this long period of time? Casanova at once invented a fictitious throat complaint and pretended that dust greatly irritated and aggravated the ill. Laurent, the warder, insisting upon cleanliness, suggested that the floor should still be swept but not until after it had been watered. Again Casanova objected, dreading some other disorder and justifying his complaint by spitting blood copiously which he had surreptitiously obtained from a pricked finger. The doctor was called in and took the prisoner’s part, and the result was a peremptory order that the floor should not be touched again. Casanova had now a fair field, but it was winter time and daylight hours were too few to allow of lengthened labour; indeed, the cell was dark for nineteen hours out of the twenty-four. Again his marvellous ingenuity stood him in good stead. He set himself to contrive a lamp and made it out of the most unpromising materials. He appropriated a saucer in which they served him fried eggs, and he made a wick out of his cotton shirt. To strike a light, flint and steel were required; the first Laurent brought him in the shape of a stone to be steeped in vinegar and applied as a sovereign remedy for a raging toothache; the second he found in the steel buckle of his small clothes. For sulphur he had recourse to the friendly doctor who gave him some in a prescription, and last of all he found the tinder in the wadding which his tailor always sewed in under the arm-pits of his coat. Fresh and exasperating delay was caused by the arrival of another unwelcome companion, another Jew, a most irritating and disagreeable person, who made Casanova desperate, not only by checking the work which it would have been unsafe to prosecute before him, but by constantly interfering with his fellow prisoner’s comfort in everything he did. Extremely fat and lazy, he spent three parts of the day in bed and was consequently unable to sleep at night. Once he ventured to rouse Casanova to talk to him and pass the time. Casanova was furiously angry. “Hateful villain,” he cried, “Sleep is the sole boon a prisoner can enjoy because it brings him forgetfulness. If ever you wake me again, I swear I will strangle you.” It was well that the work at the floor had not been commenced before the Jew came in, for he would assuredly have betrayed Casanova, and as it was he absolutely refused to agree to the arrangement of not sweeping the floor. Fortunately, and to Casanova’s immense relief, a fortnight after Easter this unaccommodating person was removed to the