intently into corners and a gentleman with a bag over his
shoulder who was pointing out some columns with an umbrella. Afterwards
I saw a ticket-window. 'That doubtless means that one pays to get in,' I
said, and as the ground was covered with mud and I didn't care to wet my
feet, I asked a young rascal who was selling post-cards what that place
was. I didn't quite understand his explanation, which I am sure was very
amusing. He confused Emperors with the Madonna and the saints. I gave
the lad a lira and had some trouble in escaping from there, because he
followed me around everywhere calling me Excellency."

"I think Don Caesar is making fun of us," said Preciozi.

"No, no."

"But really, how did Rome strike you, on the whole?" asked the abbe.

"Well, I find it like a mixture of a monumental great city and a
provincial capital."

"That is possible," responded the abbe. "Undoubtedly the provincial city
is more of a city than the big modern capitals, where there is nothing
to see but fine hotels on one hand and horrible hovels on the other. If
you came from America, like me, you would see how agreeable you would
find the impression of a city that one gets here. To forget all the
geometry, the streets laid out with a compass, the right angles...."

"Probably so."

The abbe seemed to have an interest in gaining Caesar's friendship.
Caesar said to him that, if he wished, they could go to his room to chat
and smoke. The abbe accepted with gusto, and Caesar, being a suspicious
person, wondered if the Cardinal might have sent the abbe to find out
what sort of man he was. Then he considered that his ideas must be of no
importance whatsoever to his uncle; but on the chance, he set himself
to throwing the abbe off the scent, talking volubly and emitting
contradictory opinions about everything.

After chattering a long while and devoting himself to free paradox,
Caesar thought that for the first session he had not done altogether
badly. Preciozi took leave, promising to come back the next day.

"If he reports our conversation to my uncle, the man won't know what to
think of me," reflected Caesar, on going to bed. "It would not be too
much to expect, if His Eminence became interested and sent to fetch me.
But I don't believe he will; my uncle cannot be intelligent enough to
have the curiosity to know a man like me."

VI. THE LITTLE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE IN A ROMAN HOTEL. _INTIMACIES_

During some days the main