Although my time was fully occupied here, I managed to continue my pocket practice; and I daily noticed with joy the progress I was making. I had learned how to make any object I held in my hand disappear with the greatest ease; and as for the practice of card tricks, they were only child’s play to me, and I could produce some delightful illusions. I confess to feeling a degree of pride in my humble power of amusing my friends, and I neglected no occasion of displaying it. On Sunday, for instance, after the invariable game of loto, which was played in this patriarchal family, I gave a small performance of sleight-of-hand, which enlivened the melancholy victims of this most monotonous of all games. I was honored with the name of an “agreeable droll,” and this compliment delighted me. My regular habits, my perseverance, and perhaps a certain degree of gaiety I possessed at the time, had gained me the friendship and sympathy of both my master and mistress. At last I became an indispensable member of the family, and shared in all their amusements. Among these were frequent excursions in the country. On one of these, on the 25th of July, 1828, (I shall never forget that memorable date, as it was all but registered on my tombstone,) we went to a fair at an adjacent village. Before leaving Tours, we had promised to be home to dinner at five; but, finding ourselves much amused, we did not keep military time, nor find our way home till eight. After enduring the scolding of the cook, whose dinner had got cold, we sat down and ate like people whose appetite has been whetted by a long walk in the open air, and eight or ten hours’ fasting. Whatever Jeannette might say, everything she sent up was found excellent, except a certain ragoût, which everybody declared detestable, and hardly touched. I, however, devoured my share of the dish, without troubling myself the least in the world about its quality. In spite of the jests aroused by my avidity, I asked for a second relay, and would certainly have eaten the whole dish, had not my mistress, with due regard for my health, prevented it. This precaution saved my life. In fact, dinner was hardly over and the game of loto begun, when I felt most uncomfortable. I went to my room, where atrocious pains seized upon me, and a doctor was sent for. After a careful investigation, the doctor discovered that a powerful layer of verdigris had formed in the stewpan in which the ragoût had been cooked and said I was poisoned.