black hair. He wore a white
neck-tie, and a suit of rusty black clothes. He also held a large
umbrella in his hand, which he kept carefully up out of the way of the
crowd. This figure was a conspicuous one, even in that crowd, and the
ladies had noticed it at the very first.

As the Pope drove up they saw this long, slim, thin, cadaverous man,
in his suit of rusty black, edging his way through the crowd, so as to
get nearer, until at length he stood immediately behind the line of
Swiss Guards, who were keeping the crowd back, and forming a
passageway for the Pope. Meanwhile his Holiness was advancing through
the crowd. He reached out his hand, and smiled and bowed and murmured
a blessing over them. At last his carriage stopped. The door was
opened, and several attendants prepared to receive the Pope and assist
him out.

At that instant the tall, slim stranger pushed forward his sallow
head, with its long, lanky, and rusty black hair, between two Swiss
Guards, and tried to squeeze between them. The Swiss at first stood
motionless, and the stranger had actually succeeded in getting about
half-way through. He was immediately in front of his Holiness, and
staring at him with all his might. His Holiness saw this very peculiar
face, and was so surprised that he uttered an involuntary exclamation,
and stopped short in his descent.

The stranger stopped short too, and quite involuntarily also. For the
Swiss Guards, irritated by his pertinacity, and seeing the Pope's
gesture, turned suddenly, and two of them grasped the stranger by his
coat collar.

It was, of course, an extremely undignified attitude for the Swiss
Guards, whose position is simply an ornamental one. Nothing but the
most unparalleled outrage to their dignity could have moved them to
this. So unusual a display of energy, however, did not last long. A
few persons in citizens' clothes darted forward from among the crowd,
and secured the stranger; while the Swiss, seeing who they were,
resumed their erect, rigid, and ornamental attitude. The Pope found no
longer any obstacle, and resumed his descent. For a moment the
stranger had created a wide-spread consternation in the breasts of all
the different and very numerous classes of men who composed that
crowd. The arrest was the signal for a murmur of voices, among which
the ladies heard those of the knot of Englishmen who stood near.

"It's some Garibaldian," said they.

And this was the general sentiment.

S