Maccaroni And Canvas.

II.

The voice of Rome is baritone, always excepting that of the Roman locomotive,—the donkey,—which is deep bass, and comes tearing and braying along at times when it might well be spared. In the still night season, wandering among the moonlit ruins of the Coliseum, while you pause and gaze upon the rising tiers of crumbling stone above you, memory retraces all you have read of the old Roman days: the forms of the world-conquerors once more people the deserted ruin; the clash of ringing steel; hot, fiery sunlight; thin, trembling veil of dust pierced by the glaring eyes of dying gladiators; red-spouting blood; screams of the mangled martyrs torn by Numidian lions; moans of the dying; fierce shouts of exultation from the living; smiles from gold-banded girls in flowing robes, with floating hair, flower-crowned, and perfumed; the hum of thrice thirty thousand voices hushed to a whisper as the combat hangs on an uplifted sword; the—

Aw-waw-WAUN-ik! WAW-NIK! WAUN-KI-w-a-w-n! comes like blatant fish-horn over the silent air, and your dream of the Coliseum ends ignominiously with this nineteenth-century song of a jackass.

At night you will hear the shrill cry of the screech-owl sounding down the silent streets in the most thickly-populated parts of the city. Or you will perhaps be aroused from sleep, as Caper often was, by the long-drawn-out cadences of some countryman singing a rondinella as he staggers along the street, fresh from a wine-house. Nothing can be more melancholy than the concluding part of each verse in these rondinellas, the voice being allowed to drop from one note to another, as a man falling from the roof of a very high house may catch at some projection, hold on for a time, grow weak, loose his hold, fall, catch again, hold on for a minute, and at last fall flat on the pavement, used up, and down as low as he can reach.

But the street-cries of this city are countless; from the man who brings round the daily broccoli to the one who has a wild boar for sale, not one but is determined that you shall hear all about it. Far down a narrow street you listen to a long-drawn, melancholy howl—the voice as of one hired to cry in the most mournful tones for whole generations of old pagan Romans who died unconverted; poor devils who worshiped wine and women, and knew nothing better in this world. And who is their mourner? A great, brawny, tawny, steeple-crowned hat, blue-breeched, two-fisted fish-huckster; and he is trying to sell, by yelling as if his heart would break, a basket of fish not so long as your finger. If he cries so over anchovies, what would he do if he had a whale for sale?

Another primo basso profundo trolls off a wheelbarrow and a fearful cry at the same time; not in unison with his merchandise, for he has birds—quail, woodcock, and snipe—for sale, besides a string of dead nightingales, which he says he will 'sell cheap for a nice stew.' Think of stewed nightingales! One would as soon think of eating a boiled Cremona violin.

But out of the way! Here comes, blocking up the narrow street, a contadino, a countryman from the Campagna. His square wooden cart is drawn by a donkey about the size of, and resembling, save ears, a singed Newfoundland dog; his voice, strong for a vegetarian,—for he sells onions and broccoli, celery and tomatoes, finocchio and mushrooms,—is like tearing a firm rag: how long can it last, subjected to such use?

It is in the game and meat market, near the Pantheon, that you can more fully become acquainted with the street cries of Rome; but the Piazza Navona excels even this. Passing along there one morning, Caper heard such an extraordinary piece of vocalization, sounding like a Sioux war-whoop with its back broken, that he stopped to see what it was all about. There stood a butcher who had exposed for sale seven small stuck pigs, all one litter; and if they had been his own children, and died heretics, he could not have howled over them in a more heart-rending manner.

About sunrise, and even before it,—for the Romans are early risers,—you will hear in spring-time a sharp ringing voice under your window, 'Acqua chetosa! Acqua, chetosa!' an abridgment of acque accetosa, or water from the fountain of Accetosa, considered a good aperient, and which is drank before breakfast. Also a voice crying out, 'Acqua-vi-ta!' or spirits, drank by the workmen and others at an expense of a baioccho or two the table-spoonful, for that is all the small glasses hold. In the early morning, too, you hear the chattering jackdaws on the roofs; and then, more distinctly than later in the day, the clocks striking their odd way. The Roman clocks ring from one to six strokes four times during the twenty-four hours, and not from one to twelve strokes, as with us. Sunset is twenty-four o'clock, and is noted by six strokes; an hour after sunset is one o'clock, and is noted by one stroke; and so on until six hours after, when it begins striking one again. As the quarter hours are also rung by the clocks, if you happen to be near one you will have a fine chance to get in a muddle trying to separate quarters from hours, and Roman time from your own. Another noise comes from the game of morra. Caper was looking out of his window one morning, pipe in mouth, when he saw two men suddenly face each other, one of them bringing his arm down very quickly, when the other yelled as if kicked, 'Dué!' (two), and the first shouted at the top of his lungs, 'Tre!' (three). Then they both went at it, pumping their hands up and down and spreading their fingers with a quickness which was astonishing, while all the time they kept screaming, 'One!' 'Four!' 'Three!' 'Two!' 'Five!' etc., etc. 'Ha!' said Caper, 'this is something like; 'tis an arithmetical, mathematical, etcetrical school in the open air. The dirtiest one is very quick; he will learn to count five in no time. But I don't see the necessity of saying "three" when the other brings down four fingers, or saying "five" when he shows two. But I suppose it is all right; he hasn't learned to give the right names yet.' He learned later that they were gambling.

While these men were shouting, there came along an ugly old woman with a tambourine and a one-legged man with a guitar, and seeing prey in the shape of Caper at his window, they pounced on him, as it were, and poured forth the most ear-rending discord; the old lady singing, the old gentleman backing up against a wall and scratching at an accompaniment on a jangling old guitar. The old lady had a bandana handkerchief tied over her head, and whilst she watched Caper she cast glances up and down the street, to see if some rich stranger, or milordo, was not coming to throw her a piece of silver.

'What are you howling about?' shouted Caper down to her.

'A new Neapolitan canzonetta, signore; all about a young man who grieves for his sweetheart, because he thinks she is not true to him, and what he says to her in a serenade.' And here she screechingly sung,—

But do not rage, I beg, my dear;

I want you for my wife,

And morning, noon, and night likewise,

I'll love you like my life.

CHORUS.

I only want to get a word,

My charming girl, from thee.

You know, Ninella, I can't breathe,

Unless your heart's for me!

'Well,' said Caper, 'if this is Italian music, I don't see it.'

The one-legged old gentleman clawed away at the strings of the guitar.

'I say,'llustrissimo,' shouted Caper down to him, 'what kind of strings are those on your instrument?'

'Excellenza, catgut,' he shouted, in answer.

'Benissimo! I prefer cats in the original packages. There's a paolo: travel!'

Caper had the misfortune to make the acquaintance of a professor of the mandolin, a wire-strung instrument, resembling a long-necked squash cut in two, to be played on with a quill, and which, with a guitar and violin, makes a concert that thrills you to the bones and cuts the nerves away.

But the crowning glory of all that is ear-rending and peace-destroying, is carried around by the Pifferari about Christmas time. It is a hog-skin, filled with wind, having pipes at one end, and a jackass at the other, and is known in some lands as the bagpipe. The small shrines to the Virgin, particularly those in the streets where the wealthy English reside, are played upon assiduously by the pifferari, who are supposed by romantic travelers to come from the far-away Abbruzzi Mountains, and make a pilgrimage to the Eternal City to fulfil a vow to certain saints; whereas it is sundry cents they are really after. They are for the most part artists' models, who at this season of the year get themselves up à la pifferari, or piper, to prey on the romantic susceptibilities and pockets of the strangers in Rome, and, with a pair of long-haired goat-skin breeches, a sheepskin coat, brown rags, and sandals, or cioccie, with a shocking bad conical black or brown hat, in which are stuck peacock's or cock's feathers, they are ready equipped to attack the shrines and the strangers.

Unfortunately for Caper there was a shrine to the Virgin in the second-story front of the house next to where he lived; that is, unfortunately for his musical ear, for the lamp that burned in front of the shrine every dark night was a shining and pious light to guide him home, and thus, ordinarily, a very fortunate arrangement. In the third-story front room of the house of the shrine dwelt a Scotch artist named MacGuilp, who was a grand amateur of these pipes, and who declared that no sound in the world was so sweet to his ear as the bagpipes: they recalled the heather, haggis, and the Lothians, and the mountain dew, ye ken, and all those sorts of things.

One morning at breakfast in the Café Greco he discoursed at length about the pleasure the pifferari gave him; while Caper, taking an opposite view, said they had, during the last few days, driven him nearly crazy, and he wished the squealing hog-skins well out of town.

MacGuilp told him he had a poor ear for music: that there was a charm about the bagpipes unequalled even by the unique voices of the Sistine Chapel; and there was nothing he would like better than to have all the pipers of Rome under his windows.

Caper remembered this last rash speech of Master MacGuilp, and determined at an early hour to test its truth. It happened, the very next morning at breakfast, that MacGuilp, in a triumphant manner, told him that he had received a promise of a visit from the Duchess of ——, with several other titled English; and said he had not a doubt of selling several paintings to them. MacGuilp's style was of the blood-and-thunder school: red dawns, murdered kings, blood-stained heather, and Scotch plaids, the very kind that should be shown to the sweet strainings of hog-skin bagpipes.

In conversation Caper found out the hour at which the duchess intended to make her visit. He made his preparations accordingly. Accompanied by Rocjean, he visited Gigi, who kept a costume and life school of models, found out where the pipers drank most wine, and going there and up the Via Fratina and down the Spanish Steps, managed to find them, and arranged it so that at the time the duchess was viewing MacGuilp's paintings, he should have the full benefit of a serenade from all the pifferari in Rome.

The next morning Caper, pipe in mouth, at his window, saw the carriage of the duchess drive up, and from it the noble English dismount and ascend to the artist's studio. The carriage had hardly driven away when up came two of the pipers, and happening to cast their eyes up they saw Caper, who hailed them and told them not to begin playing until the others arrived. In a few moments six of the hog-skin squeezers stood ready to begin their infernal squawking.

'Go ahead!' shouted Caper, throwing a handful of baiocchi among them; and as soon as these were gathered up, the pipers gave one awful, heart-chilling blast, and the concert was fairly commenced. Squealing, shrieking, grunting, yelling, and humming, the sounds rose higher and higher. Open flew the windows in every direction.

'C'est foudroyante!' said the pretty French modiste.

'What the devil's broke loose?' shouted an American.

'Mein Gott im himmel! was ist das?' roared the German baron.

'Casaccio! cosa faceste?' shrieked the lovely Countess Grimanny.

'In nomine Domine!' groaned a fat friar.

'Caramba! vayase al infierno!' screamed Don Santiago Gomez.

'Bassama teremtete!' swore the Hungarian gentleman.

Louder squealed the bagpipes, their buzz filled the air, their shrieks went ringing up to MacGuilp like the cries of Dante's condemned. The duchess found the sound barbarous. MacGuilp opened his window, upon which the pipers strained their lungs for the Signore Inglese, grand amateur of the bagpipes. He begged them to go away. 'No, no, signore; we know you love our music; we won't go away.'

The duchess could stand it no longer, her Servant called the carriage, the English got in and drove off.

Still rung out the sounds of the six bagpipes. Caper threw them more baiocchi.

Suddenly MacGuilp burst out of the door of his house, maul-stick in hand, rushing on the pifferari to put them to flight.

'Iddio giusto!' shouted two of the pipers; 'it is, IT IS the Cacciatore! the hunter; the Great Hunter!'

'He is a painter!' shouted another.

'No, he isn't; he's a hunter. Gran Cacciatore! Doesn't he spend all his time after quails and snipe and woodcock? Haven't I been out with him day after day at Ostia? Long live the great hunter!'

MacGuilp was touched in a tender spot. The homage paid him as a great hunter more than did away with his anger at the bagpipe serenade. And the last Caper saw of him he was leading six pifferari into a wine shop, where they would not come out until seven of them were unable to tell the music of bagpipes from the music of the spheres.

So ends the music, noises, and voices, of the seven-hilled city.

Sermons In Stones.

One bright Sunday morning in January, Rocjean called on Caper to ask him to improve the day by taking a walk.

'I thought of going up to the English chapel outside the Popolo to see a pretty New Yorkeress,' said the latter; 'but the affair is not very pressing, and I believe a turn round the Villa Borghese would do me as much good as only looking at a pretty girl and half hearing a poor sermon.'

'As for a sermon, we need not miss that,' answered Rocjean, 'for we will stop in at Chapin the sculptor's studio, and if we escape one, and he there, I am mistaken. They call his studio a shop, and they call his shop the Orphan's Asylum, because he manufactured an Orphan Girl some years ago, and, as it sold well, he has kept on making orphans ever since.

'The murderer!'

'Yes; but not half as atrocious as the reality. You must know that when he first came over here he had an order to make a small Virgin Mary for a Catholic church in Boston; but the order being countermanded after he had commenced modeling in clay, he was determined not to lose his time, and so, having somewhere read of, in a yellow-covered novel, or seen in some fashion-plate magazine, a doleful-looking female called The Orphan, he instantly determined, cruel executioner that he is, to also make an orphan. And he did. There is a dash of bogus sentiment in it that passes for coin current with many of our traveling Americans; and the thing has "sold." He told me not long since he had orders for twelve copies of different sized Orphans, and you will see them all through his asylum. Do you remember those lines in Richard the Third,—

'"Why do you look on us, and shake your head,

And call us orphans—wretched?"'

They found Chapin in his shop, alias studio, busily looking over a number of plaster casts of legs and arms. He arose quickly as they entered and threw a cloth over the casts.

'Hah! gudmornin', Mister Caper. Glad to see you in my studiyo. Hallo, Rocjan! you there? Why haven't you ben up to see my wife and daughters? She feels hurt, I tell you, 'cause you don't come near us. Do you know that Burkings of Bosting was round here to my studiyo yeserday: sold him an Orphan. By the way, Mister Caper, air you any relation to Caper of the great East Ingy house of Caper?'

'He is an uncle of mine, and is now in Florence; he will be in Rome next week.'

A tender glow of interest beamed in Chapin's eyes: in imagination he saw another Orphan sold to the rich Caper, who might 'influence trade.' His tone of voice after this was subdued. As Caper happened to brush against some plaster coming in the studio, Chapin hastened to brush it from his coat, and he did it as if it were the down on the wing of a beautiful golden butterfly.

'I was goin' to church this mornin' long with Missus Chapin; but I guess I'll stay away for once in me life. I want to show you The Orphan.'

'I beg that you will not let me interfere with any engagement you may have,' said Caper; 'I can call as well at any other time.'

'Oh, no; I won't lissen to that; I don't want to git to meeting before sermon, so come right stret in here now. There! there's The Orphan. You see I've made her accordin' to the profoundest rules of art. You may take a string or a yard measure and go all over her, you won't find her out of the way a fraction. The figure is six times the length of the foot; this was the way Phidias worked, and I agree with him. Them were splendid old fellows, them Greeks. There was art for you; high art!'

'That in the Acropolis was of the highest order,' said Rocjean.

'Yes,' answered Chapin, who did not know where it was; 'far above all other. There was some sentiment in them days; but it was all of the religious stripe; they didn't come down to domestic life and feelin'; they hadn't made the strides we have towards layin' open art to the million—towards developing hum feelings. They worked for a precious few; but we do it up for the many. Now there's the A-poller Belvidiary—beautiful thing; but the idea of brushin' his hair that way is ridicoolus. Did you ever see anybody with their hair fixed that way? Never! They had a way among the Greeks of fixing their drapery right well; but I've invented a plan—for which I've applied to Washington for a patent—that I think will beat anything Phidias ever did.'

'You can't tell how charmed I am to hear you,' spoke Rocjean.

'Well, it is a great invention,' continued Chapin; 'and as I know neither of you ain't in the 'trade' (smiling), I don't care but what I'll show it to you, if you'll promise, honor bright, you won't tell anybody. You see I take a piece of muslin and hang it onto a statue the way I want the folds to fall; then I take a syringe filled with starch and glue and go all over it, so that when it dries it'll be as hard as a rock. Then I go all over it with a certain oily preparation and lastly I run liquid plaster-paris in it, and when it hardens, I have an exact mold of the drapery. There! But I hain't explained The Orphan. You see she's sittin' on a very light chair—that shows the very little support she has in this world. The hand to the head shows meditation; and the Bible on her knee shows devotion; you see it's open to the book, chapter, and verse which refers to the young ravens.'

'Excuse me,' said Caper, 'but may I ask why she has such a very low-necked dress on?'

'Well, my model has got such a fine neck and shoulders,' replied Chapin, 'that I re-eely couldn't help showing 'em off on the Orphan: besides, they're more in demand—the low neck and short sleeves—than the high-bodied style, which has no buyers. But there is a work I'm engaged on now that would just soot your uncle. Mr. Caper, come this way.'

Caper saw what he supposed was a safe to keep meat cool in, and approached. Chapin threw back the doors of it like a showman about to disclose the What Is It? and Caper saw a dropsical-looking Cupid with a very short shirt on, and a pair of winged shoes on his feet. The figure was starting forward as if to catch his equilibrium, which he had that moment lost, and was only prevented from tumbling forward by a bag held behind him in his left hand, while his right arm and hand, at full length, pointed a sharp arrow in front of him.

'Can you tell me what that figger represents?' asked Chapin. As he received no reply, he continued: 'That is Enterprise; the two little ruts at his feet represent a railroad; the arrow, showin' he's sharp, points ahead; Go ahead! is his motto; the bag in his hand represents money, which the keen, sharp, shrewd business man knows is the reward of enterprise. The wreath round his head is laurel mixed up with lightnin', showin' he's up to the tellygraph; the pen behind his ear shows he can figger; and his short shirt shows economy, that admirable virtoo. The wings on his shoes air taken from Mercury, as I suppose you know; and—'

'I say, now, Chapin, don't you think he's got a little too much legs, and rather extra stomach on him, to make fast time?' asked Rocjean.

'Measure him, measure him!' said Chapin, indignantly; 'there's a string. Figure six times the length of his foot, everything else in proportion. No, sir; I have not studied the classic for nothin'; if there is any one thing I am strong on, it's anatomy. Only look at his hair. Why, sir, I spent three weeks once dissectin'; and for more'n six months I didn't do anything, during my idle time, but dror figgers. Art is a kind of thing that's born in a man. This saying the ancients were better sculpters than we air, is no such thing; what did they know about steam-engines or telegraphs? Fiddle! They did some fustrate things, but they had no idee of fixin' hair as it should be fixed. No, sir; we moderns have great add-vantagiz, and we improve 'em. Rome is the Cra—'

'I must bid you good-day,' interrupted Caper; 'your wife will miss you at the sermon: you will attribute it to me; and I would not intentionally be the cause of having her ill-will for anything.'

'Well, she is a pretty hard innimy; and they do talk here in Rome if you don't toe the mark. But ree-ly, you mustn't go off mad (smiling). You must call up with Rocjan and see us; and I ree-ly hope that when your uncle comes you will bring him to my studiyo. I am sure my Enterprise will soot him.'

So Chapin saw them out of his studio. Not until Caper found himself seated on a stone bench under the ilexes of the Villa Borghese, watching the sunbeams darting on the little lizards, and seeing far off the Albanian Mountains, snowcapped against the blue sky—not until then did he breathe freely.

'Rocjean,' said he; 'that stone-cutter down there—that Chapin—'

'Chameau! roared Rocjean. 'He and his kind are doing for art what the Jews did for prize-fighting—they ruin it. They make art the laughing-stock of all refined and educated people. Art applied solely to sculpture and painting is dead; it will not rise again in these our times. But art, the fairy-fingered beautifier of all that surrounds our homes and daily walks, save paintings and statuary, never breathed so fully, clearly, nobly as now, and her pathway amid the lowly and homely things around us is shedding beauty wherever it goes. The rough-handed artisan who, slowly dreaming of the beautiful, at last turns out a stone that will beautify and adorn a room, instead of rendering it hideous, has done for this practical generation what he of an earlier theoretical age did for his cotemporaries when he carved the imperial Venus of Milos. Enough; this is the sermon not preached from stones.'

A Ball At The Costa Palace

One sunlight morning in February, while hard at work in his studio, Caper was agreeably surprised by the entrance of an elderly uncle of his, Mr. Bill Browne, of St. Louis, a gentleman of the rosy, stout, hearty school of old bachelors, who, having made a large fortune by keeping a Western country store, prudently retired from business, and finding it dull work doing nothing, wisely determined to enjoy himself with a tour over the Continent, 'or any other place he might conclude to visit.'

'I say, Jim, did you expect to see me here?' was his first greeting.

'Why, Uncle Bill! Well, you are the last man I ever thought would turn up. They didn't write me a word of your coming over,' answered Caper.

'Mistake; they wrote you all about it; and if you'll drop round at the post-office, you'll find letters there telling you the particulars. Fact is, I am ahead of the mail. Coming over in the steamer, met a man named Orville; told me he knew you, that he was coming straight through to Rome, and offered to pilot me. So I gave up Paris and all that, and came smack through, eighteen days from New York. But I'm dry. Got a match? Here, try one of these cigars.'

Caper took a cigar from his uncle's case, lit it, and then, calling the man who swept out the studios, sent him to the neighboring wine-shop for a bottle of wine.

'By George, Jim, that's a pretty painting: that jackass is fairly alive, and so's the girl with a red boddice. I say, what's she got that towel on her head for? Is it put there to dry?'

'No; that's an Italian peasant girl's head-covering. Most all of them do so.'

'Do they? I'm glad of that. But here comes your man with the liquor.'

And, after drinking two or three tumblers full, Uncle Bill decided that it was pretty good cider. The wine finished, together with a couple of rolls that came with it, the two sallied out for a walk around the Pincian Hill, the grand promenade of Rome. Towards sunset they thought of dinner, and Uncle Bill, anxious to see life, accepted Caper's invitation to dine at the old Gabioni: here they ordered the best dishes, and the former swore it was as good a dinner as he ever got at the Planter's House. Rocjean, who dined there, delighted the old gentleman immensely, and the two fraternized at once, and drank each other's health, old style, until Caper, fearing that neither could conveniently hold more, suggested an adjournment to the Greco for coffee and cigars.

While they were in the café, Rocjean quietly proposed something to Caper, who at once assented; the latter then said to Uncle Bill,—

'You have arrived in Rome just at the right time. You may have heard at home of the great Giacinti family; well, the Prince Nicolo di Giacinti gives a grand ball to-night at the Palazzo Costa. Rocjean and I have received invitations, embracing any illustrious strangers of our acquaintance who may happen to be in Rome; so you must go with us. You have no idea, until you come to know them intimately, what a good-natured, off-hand set the best of the Roman nobility are. Compelled by circumstances to keep up for effect an appearance of great reserve and dignity before the public, they indemnify themselves for it in private by having the highest kind of old times. They are passionately attached to their native habits and costumes, and though driven, on state occasions especially, to imitate French and English habits, yet they love nothing better than at times to enjoy themselves in their native way. The ball given by the prince to-night is what might be called a free-and-easy. It is his particular desire that no one should come in full dress; in fact, he rather likes to have his stranger guests come in their worst clothes, for this prevents the attention of the public being called to them as they enter the palace. After you have lived some time in Rome you will see how necessary it is to keep dark, so you will see no flaring light at the palace gate; it's all as quiet and common-place as possible. The dresses, you must remember, are assumed for the occasion because they are, or were, the national costume, which is fast disappearing, and if it were not for the noble wearers you will see to-night, you could not find them anywhere in Rome. You will perhaps think the nobility at the ball hardly realize your ideas of Italian beauty and refinement, compared with the fine specimens of men and women you may have seen among the Italian opera singers at home: well, these same singers are picked specimens, and are chosen for their height and muscular development from the whole nation, so that strangers may think all the rest at home are like them: it is a little piece of deception we can pardon.'

After this long prelude, Rocjean proposed that they should try a game of billiards in the Café Nuovo. After they had played a game or two, and drank several mezzo caldos, or rum punches, they walked up the Corso to the Via San Claudio, No. 48, and entered the palace gate. It was very dark after they entered, so Rocjean, telling them to wait one moment, lit a cerina, or piece of waxed cord, an article indispensable to a Roman, and, crossing the broad courtyard, they entered a small door, and after climbing and twisting and turning, found a ticket-taker, and the next minute were in the ball-room.

Uncle Bill was delighted with the excessively free-and-easy ball of Prince Giacinti, but was very anxious to know the names of the nobility, and Rocjean politely undertook to point out the celebrities, offering kindly to introduce him to any one he might think looked sympathetic; 'what they call simpatico in Italian,' explained Rocjean.

'That pretty girl in Ciociara costume is the Condessa or Countess Stella di Napoli.'

'Introduce me,' said Uncle Bill.

Rocjean went through the performance, concluding thus: 'The countess expresses a wish that you should order a bottiglia (about two bottles) of red wine.'

'Go ahead,' quoth Uncle Bill; 'for a nobility ball this comes as near a dance-house affair as I ever want to approach. By the way, who is that pickpocket-looking genius with eyes like a black snake?'

'Who is that?' said Rocjean, theatrically. 'Chut! a word in your ear; that is An-to-nel-li!'

'The devil! But I heard some one only a few minutes ago call him Angelucio.'

'That was done satirically, for it means big angel, which you, who read the papers, know that Antonelli is not. But here comes the wine, and I see the countess looks dry. Pour out a half-dozen glasses for her. The Roman women, high and low, paddle in wine like ducks, and it never upsets them; for, like ducks, their feet are so large that neither you nor wine can throw them. I wish you could speak Italian, for here comes the Princess Giacinta con Marchese—'

'I wish,' said Uncle Bill, 'you would talk English.'

'Well,' continued Rocjean, 'with the Marchioness Nina Romana, if you like that better. Shall I introduce you?'

'Certainly,' replied the old gentleman, 'and order two more what d'ye call 'ems. It's cheap—this knowing a princess for a quart of red teaberry tooth-wash, for that's what this "wine" amounts to. I am going to dance to-night, for the Princess Giacinta is a complete woman after my heart, and weighs her two hundred pound any day.'

The nobility now began begging Rocjean and Caper to introduce them to his excellency Il vecchio, or the old man; and Uncle Bill, in his enthusiasm at finding himself surrounded with so many princes, Allegrini, Pelligrini, Sapgrini, and Dungreeny, compelled Caper to order up a barrel of wine, set it a-tap, and tell the nobility to 'go in.' It is needless to say that they went in. Many of the costumes were very rich, especially those of the female nobility; and in the rush for a glass of wine the effect of the brilliant draperies flying here and there, struggling and pushing, was notable. The musicians, who were standing on what appeared to be barrels draped with white cloth, jumped down and tried their luck at the wine-cask, and, after satisfying their thirst, returned to their duties. There was a guitar, mandolin, violin, and flute, and the music was good for dancing. Uncle Bill was pounced on by the Princess Giacinta and whirled off into some kind of a dance, he did not know what; round flew the room and the nobility; round flew barrels of teaberry tooth-wash, beautiful princesses, big devils of Antonellis. Lights, flash, hum, buzz, buzz, zzz—ooo—zoom!

Uncle Bill opened his eyes as the sunlight shed one golden bar into his sleeping-room at the Hotel d'Europe, and there by his bedside sat his nephew, Jim Caper, reading a letter, while on a table near at hand was a goblet full of ice, a bottle of hock, and another bottle corked, with string over it.

'It's so-da wa-ter,' said Uncle Bill, musing aloud.

'Hallo, uncle, you awake?' asked Caper, suddenly raising his eyes from his letter.

'I am, my son. Give thy aged father thy blessing, and open that hock and soda water quicker! I say, Jim, now, what became of the nobility, the Colonnas and Aldobrandinis, after they finished that barrel? Strikes me some of them will have an owlly appearance this morning.'

'You don't know them,' answered Caper.

'I am beginning to believe I don't, too,' spoke Uncle Bill. 'I say, now, Jim, where did we go last night?'

'Why, Uncle Bill, to tell you the plain truth, we went to a ball at the Costa Palace, and a model ball it was, too.'

'I have you! Models who sit for you painters. Well, if they arn't nobility, they drink like kings, so it's all right. Give us the hock, and say no more about it.'