MY GOOD ERCOLE,--I am leaving here today for Rome, where the case of the government against the Marchese degli Abbraccioli is to come on next week, but before I do so I must write you of the last act in the little comedy of Arsène Sigard. I never lost sight of him from the moment we left Paris, and when he found I was also on my way to Italy, he became confidential, and, in exchange for certain information which I was able to give him about Milan, etc., told me a long story about himself and his affairs, which I found none the less amusing for knowing it to be a tissue of lies. The time passed readily enough, but I was relieved when we started over the St. Gothard, because I knew then that the game was as good as played. We arrived at Chiasso on time (two o'clock) and I found Sassevero on the platform when I jumped out. He had come on from Rome the night before, and was in a positive panic because Palmi, who had been watching old Michel there, had lost him somehow and nobody knew where he'd gone. He might have come through on any train, of course, and Sassevero didn't even know him by sight. Naturally, our little business with Sigard was soon done. Cagliacci is still chief of customs at Chiasso, and he simply confiscated the trunk and everything in it, though, of course, the government wasn't after anything but the picture. There were two hours of argument over the disposition of Sigard, but it seemed best to let him go and nothing further said, which he was only too glad to do. The Old Man is shy of diplomatic complications, it appears, and he had told Sassevero to frighten the chap thoroughly and then let him slip off. Here comes in the most remarkable part of all. Just as Sigard was marching out of the room, in came the Lucerne express, and our friend walks almost into the arms of an oldish gentleman who had jumped out of a carriage and was hurrying into the customs room. "Bon Dieu!" said this individual, "what does _this_ mean?" "What does what mean?" put in Sassevero like a flash, and the other was so taken by surprise that, before he had time to think what he was saying, the secret was out. "That's my valet de chambre!" he said. "Really?" said Sassevero. "Bravo! Then you're the gentleman with the Marchese degli Abbraccioli's second Titian in the false bottom of his trunk!"