sking."

Then all Rome ran mad, and rode in carriages full of flowers, or carts,
or wheelbarrows, or triumphal chariots, or on camels, horses, asses, or
rails--_n'importe quoi_--and merrily cast _confetti_ of flour or lime at
one another laughing, while grave English tourists on balconies
laboriously poured the same by the peck from tin scoops on the heads of
the multitude, under the delusion that they too were enjoying themselves
and "doing" the Carnival properly. It was the one great rule among
Italians that no man should in the Carnival, under any provocation
whatever, lose his temper. And here John Bull often tripped up. On the
last night of the last Carnival--that great night--there was the _Senza
Moccolo_ or extinguishment of lights, in which everybody bore a burning
taper, and tried to blow or knock out the light of his neighbour. Now,
being tall, I held my taper high with one hand, well out of danger, while
with a broad felt hat in the other I extinguished the children of light
like a priest. I threw myself into all the roaring fun like a wild boy,
as I was, and was never so jolly. Observing a pretty young English lady
in an open carriage, I thrice extinguished her light, at which she
laughed, but at which her brother or beau did not, for he got into a
great rage, even the first time, and bade me begone. Whereupon I
promptly renewed the attack, and then repeated it, "according to the
rules of the game," whereat he began to curse and swear, when I, in the
Italian fashion of rebuke (to the delight of sundry Italians), pointed my
finger at him and hissed; which constituted the winning _point d'honneur_
in the game.

There, too, was the race of wild horses, right down through the Corso or
Condotti, well worth seeing, and very exciting, and game suppers o'nights
after the opera, and the meeting with many swells and noted folk, and now
it all seems like some memory of a wild phantasmagoria or hurried magic-
lantern show--galleries and ruins by day, and gaiety by night. Even so
do all the scenes of life roll up together at its end, often getting
mixed.

Yet another Roman memory or two. We had taken lodgings in the Via
Condotti, where we had a nice sitting-room in common and a good
coal-fire. Our landlady was lady-like and spoke French, and had long
been a governess in the great Borghese family. As for her husband, there
were thousands of Liberals far and wide who spoke of him as the greatest
scoundrel unh