bining the numbers of
their birthdays, and the ages of their fathers, their mothers, and their
children. When some relative dies, they make a magic combination of
the dates of birth and death, the day and the month, and buy a lottery
ticket. They never win; and instead of realizing that their systems
are of no avail, they say that they omitted to count in the number of
letters in the name or something of that sort. It is comical, so much
religion and so much superstition."

"But you confuse religion and superstition, my friend," said Kennedy.

"It's all the same," answered the old man, smiling his suavely ironical
smile. "There is nothing except Nature."

"You do not believe in miracles, Giovanni Battista?" asked the
Englishman.

"Yes, I believe in the earth's miracles, making trees and flowers grow,
and the miracle of children's being born from their mothers. The other
miracles I do not believe in. What for? They are so insignificant beside
the works of Nature!"

"He is a pagan," Kennedy again stated.

_YOUNG PAINTERS_

They were chatting, when three young lads came into the tavern, all
three having the air of artists, black clothes, soft hats, flowing
cravats, long hair, and pipes. "Two of them are fellow-countrymen of
yours," Kennedy told Caesar.

"They are Spanish painters," the old man added. "The other is a sculptor
who has been in the Argentine, and he talks Spanish too."

The three entered and sat down at the same table and were introduced to
Caesar. Everybody chattered. Buonacossi, the Italian, was a real type.
Of very low stature, he had a giant's torso and strong little legs. His
head was like a woe-begone eagle, his nose hooked, thin, and reddish,
eyes round, and hair black.

Buonacossi proved to be gay, exuberant, changeable, and full of
vehemence.

He explained his artistic ideas with picturesque warmth, mingling them
with blasphemies and curses. Things struck him as the best or the worst
in the world. For him there doubtless were no middle terms.

One of the two Spaniards was serious, grave, jaundiced, sour-visaged,
and named Cortes; the other, large, ordinary, fleshy, and coarse, seemed
rather a bully.

Giovanni Battista was not able to be long outside the workshop, no doubt
because his conscience troubled him, and though with difficulty, he got
up and left. Kennedy, Caesar, and the two Spaniards went toward the
Piazza, del Campidoglio, and Buonacossi marched off in the opposite
dir