Quatri prison, where he spent a couple of years. Casanova was at last free to commence work in earnest. The bed removed and the lamp lighted, the prisoner lay flat on the floor, crowbar in hand, and furnished with a napkin alongside in which to collect the fragments as they were chipped out. All these he flung next day behind the heap of rubbish in the outer gallery. Inch by inch Casanova cut through the massive planks and at the end of three weeks he had pierced a triple flooring. But now a serious obstacle interposed in the form of a layer of the little pieces of marble known in Venice as _terrazzo marmorino_--the ordinary pavement of rich men’s houses--and the sharpened bolt would not make any impression on this material. This difficulty he overcame, however, by attacking the cement which joined the fragments together. Four days sufficed to tear up the pavement and reach another plank below, probably the last of its series. Meanwhile, time passed; a midsummer sun again poured down its scorching rays upon the leads during the day, and by night the would-be prison breaker, half-choked with the accumulated heat, lay at work, his cherished lamp by his side, slowly gnawing through his cage with the busy crowbar. One day he had a terrible fright. In the middle of the afternoon he heard the grating of the bolt in the passage outside--an unusual sound at that hour of the day. He was taken by surprise, for he was at work under his bed with his lamp alight. Hastily throwing his crowbar into the hole in the floor, he blew out the lamp, crawled out and threw himself just as he was, naked, upon his bed only a second or two before Laurent appeared, ushering in a stranger who recoiled on the threshold, overcome by the heat of the room and the loathsome smell of the half-extinguished lamp. “Into what devilish place have you brought me?” he cried to his escort, “and who is this loathsome creature?” Laurent tried to reassure him, and took him out again, begging Casanova to put on some clothes. The newcomer, who promptly recognised him, proved to be a fresh cell-companion, a Venetian of rank, Count Fenarolo, who had offended against the strict etiquette that governed all dealings with foreign ambassadors and found himself committed to the Piombi. He was a gentleman and was pleased to find himself with Casanova, whom he knew personally and to whom he brought all the latest news from outside, particularly the gossip current as to the causes of Casanova’s imprisonment. One story was that he had invented a new religion; another that he had induced a young patrician to turn atheist; a third that he had created a disturbance in the theatre by hissing the plays of a writer who had many powerful friends.