It was this way. Among the other residents in the "pension" was an old Italian marchioness, who had brought her two daughters to Rome to introduce them to his Holiness the Pope. She was kind enough to take a great interest in me; and there is no knowing what might have happened--the elder daughter was really a charming girl--if it had not been for that unlucky incident of the mutton chops. On the second Friday that I was there an elderly Scotch lady, who was a rigid Presbyterian, and took no trouble to conceal the aversion with which she regarded all Papists, ordered mutton chops in the middle of the day for her lunch. When I came in from a visit to the Vatican I was very hungry. The chops were brought in, and they smelt very good; so, as the Scotch lady was late, I forgot the consideration due to age and rigid Presbyterianism, I forgot my scruples as a supposed good Catholic, I forgot that it was Friday--and I ate them. Next day the marchioness stuck me up in a corner, and asked me how I could disgrace myself by eating grilled chops on a Friday; she led me to understand that I had deceived her, and she withdrew an invitation which she had given me to visit her and renew my acquaintance with her charming daughter. Thus ended my first and last chance of a dukedom. After a few weeks in Rome, I began to get seriously embarrassed from a financial point of view. Garcia was a charming fellow; but he was a poet, and, like all poets, he had expensive habits. He even challenged me to a duel once for laughing at some of his verses; but when I threatened to kick him, he fell on my neck and embraced me. However, my purse was not long enough to sustain the two of us, and I was sitting in a little café one day considering the position and glancing idly over the _Times_, when my eye fell on an advertisement announcing that the Turkish Government had vacancies for twenty military surgeons, and inviting applications. I read the advertisement again with delight, and at once determined to send in an application. Here was a chance of seeing life with a vengeance. But my spirits fell at once. I had only a few liras in my pocket; and how on earth was I to get to the Turkish Embassy in London? C---- was in his usual poetic condition of impecuniosity, and I was afraid to think how much he owed me. But I could not afford to be chivalrous, or I might lose the opportunity of a lifetime; so I tackled him at once. He assured me with tears in his eyes that he had not even the price of a flask of Chianti in his pockets; but I was inexorable. I pointed out to him that he had a very fine gold watch,--it was really a remarkably valuable timepiece, and had come down to him as an heirloom from some haughty old Castilian grandee. I impressed upon him that a gold watch is a most unsuitable adornment to a penniless person, who is moreover in debt, and I indicated to him a means by which it could be converted into currency of the realm. I think