the
platform; isn't she the Princess Faniente? She certainly looked at _me_
very peculiarly a few minutes since.'

'It is the Princess,' answered Roejean, 'and I also noticed, a few
minutes since, when I was on the other side of the circus, that she
looked at ME with an air.'

'Don't quarrel,' spoke Caper,'she probably regards you both equally, for
--she squints.'

This answer capsized Achille, who having a small red rose-bud in his
button-hole, hoped that at a distance he might pass for a chevalier of
the Legion of Honor, and had conquered something, say something noble.

A wandering cigar-seller, with _zigarri scelti_, next demanded their
attention, and Roejean commenced an inspection of the selected cigars,
which are made by government, and sold at the fixed price of one and a
half _baiocchi_ each; even at this low price, the stock of the
tobacco-factory paid thirteen per cent under Antonelli's direction.

'Antonelli makes a pretty fair cigar,' said, 'but I wish he would wrap
the ends a little tighter. I'm sorry to hear he is going out of the
business.'

'Why, he would stay in,' answered Caper, 'but what with baking all the
bread for Rome, and attending to all the fire-wood sold, and trying to
make Ostia a seaport, and having to fight Monsieur About, and looking
after his lotteries and big pawnbroker's shop, and balancing himself on
the end of a very sharp French bayonet, his time is so occupied, he can
not roll these cigars so well as they ought to be rolled.... But they
have called out number forty-nine; you've got it, Legume, I remember you
wrote it down. Yes, there it is.'

'Forty-nine!'

'I wonder they dare call out '49 in this villa; or have the people
forgotten the revolution already, forgotten that this spot was made
ready for a battleground for liberty. The public censor knows his
business; give the Romans bread, and the circus or tombola, they will be
content--forever?'

'_Au diable_ with politics,' interrupted Achille; 'what a very pretty
girl that is alongside you, Caper. Look at her; how nicely that costume
fits her, the red boddice especially. Where, except in Italy, do you
ever see such fine black eyes, and such a splendid head of coal-black
hair? This way of having Italian nurses dressed in the Albano costume is
very fine. That little boy with her is English, certainly.'

'Och! master Jamey, come in out of that grane grass; d'yiz want ter
dirty the clane pinafore I've put on yiz this bli