O Badcock, fill Donna Julia's glass, and pass the bottle!"
We spent the next five days in company with these strange
fellow-lodgers, and more than once it gave me an uncanny feeling to
turn in the midst of Mr. Fett's prattle and, catching the eye of
Marc'antonio or Stephanu as they sat and listened with absolute
gravity, to reflect on the desperate business we were here to do.
We went about the city openly, no man suspecting us. On the day
after our arrival we discovered the Prince Camillo's quarters.
The Republic had lodged him, with a small retinue, in the Palazzo
Verde, a handsome building (though not to be reckoned among the
statelier palaces of the city), with a front on the Via Balbi, and a
garden enclosed by high walls, around which ran the discreetest of
_vicoli_. One of the Dorias, so tradition said, had built it to
house a mistress, early in the seventeenth century. I doubt not the
Prince Camillo found comfortable quarters there. For the rest, he
had begun to enjoy himself after the fashion he had learnt in
Brussels, returning to dissipation with an undisguised zest.
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