I had paid at Christmas the last instalment due on my vineyard out of Porta Salara, and though I owed no man anything I had no money, and no prospect of any for some time.
And yet I could not leave home on a long journey without at least two hundred scudi in my pocket.

A scudo is a dollar, and a dollar has five francs, so that I wanted a thousand francs.

You see, in spite of the baron's hint about the mountains, I thought I might have to travel all over Italy before I satisfied Nino.
A thousand francs is a great deal of money,--it is a Peru, as we say.
I had not the first sou toward it.

I thought a long time.

I wondered if the old piano were worth anything; whether anybody would give me money for my manuscripts, the results of patient years of labour and study; my old gold scarf pin, my seal ring, and even my silver watch, which keeps really very good time,--what were they worth?
But it would not be much, not the tenth part of what I wanted.