Up to this moment the banker, not having dared to interrupt me, although in the fury that possessed him he could with difficulty restrain, had contented himself by raising his hands and eyes towards Heaven to witness my imposture: but his patience now entirely forsook him, and he could hold out no longer. “You see before you,” cried he, “one of the most bare-faced liars on the face of the earth. Should there be found in my house a casket such as that he mentions, I shall be content to forfeit my life and every thing I possess in the world.” “And if what I have told you be not true,” cried I, in my turn, “I will consent that the banker enjoy my property in peace, and that my ears be cut off like a traitor and audacious thief who dares demand what does not belong to him. It is a very easy matter,” continued I, “to discover the truth. Nothing remains but to open the strong box, where you will find my casket and bag, with the accounts which will inform you that the money belongs to me. Give orders, Signor Bargello, give orders immediately, I beseech you, that this old rogue show you his account books, where you will see what he himself wrote the day he received the money.” “You are right,” replied the Bargello, “and further conversation would be superfluous. Come, Signor Plati, if this gentleman gave you the specie, there will of course be an entry in your books.” “Undoubtedly,” answered the banker; “but I have no fear of your finding it, and if there should be any mention made of twelve thousand franks which this stranger assures you he entrusted to me, I will confess that he tells the truth, and that I am the impostor.” At the same time he told his clerk to reach him down the large account book out of his press. Aguilera had no sooner handed this to him, than I cried out: “No, no, thou knave! this is not the book that will bear witness against thee, it was a smaller but longer one.” Aguilera then said to his master, “He must surely mean our journal.” “Let it be the journal then,” replied the banker; “bring forward all the books in the house.” Aguilera then produced the journal, and asked me if that was the one I meant. I replied that it was. The Bargello immediately began to look it over, and finding in it what our colleague had written by my order, he read the following words in a loud voice: “_This day, the 13th of February 1586, Don Juan Osorio remitted me nine hundred and sixty pistoles in gold coin, Spanish and Italian, and ten quadruples, which make together the sum of one thousand pistoles, and which will be found in my strong box in a gilt casket. Moreover, I received from the said Don Juan the same day, a bag tied with red ribbon, in which are three hundred and thirty crowns, thirty of which are Roman._”