FOUL PLAY. 77 



" When I was at Venice," Jerome tells us 1 , "at the 

 festival of the birth of the Virgin, I lost my money at 

 cards, and on the next day what remained; but I was in 

 the house of the man with whom I played. When, 

 therefore, I noticed that he used foul play, I wounded 

 him in the face with a poniard, but slightly. There 

 were present two youths of his household, and two spears 

 were hanging from the rafters, and the house-door was 

 fastened with a key. But when I had taken from him 

 all his money, both his own and mine, having won back 

 early that morning, and sent home by my boy the clothes 

 and rings that I had lost to him on the preceding day, I 

 flung back to him, of my own accord, some of the money, 

 because I saw that he was wounded." Having achieved 

 so much, Cardan pointed his sword at the two servants, 

 and threatened death to them if they did not unlock the 

 door and let him out. Their master, balancing the cost 

 in his own mind, and finding, says Jerome, that what 

 he had now lost was not more than he had previously 

 taken, bade that his assailant should be suffered to go 

 unmolested. The fierce passions awakened in the gambler 

 made such scenes no doubt sufficiently familiar, and the 

 Venetian either was conscious that he had provoked an 

 attack, by being guilty of the charge upon which it was 

 founded, or he was a hospitable, kindly man. He took 

 1 De Vita Propria, cap. xxx. 



