ow about _lying lips_, it was Sbano; so at once admitting
the truth of what indeed there was no gainsaying, we contended that the
indestructibility of the glaze, tested as it had been with aquafortis by
Rossi himself, proved the genuineness of its antiquity--it proved
nothing but that we had something still to learn! The nola varnish was
light as a soap-bubble, but this on the _Ryton_ was thick and
substantial. How he wished we had been to stay another week to have
taught us the difference! and how we wished him gone, lest he should
make some new revelations of a kindred character to the last, and betray
our ignorance in sundry other matters connected with other recent
purchases. The door has scarcely closed upon his coat-tails when in
comes a tall strapping fellow out of breath, who begs to take a chair,
and declares forthwith that he is "tutto bagnato di sudore,"--in our
service, and he hopes it may not be in vain! After administering to him
proper restoratives, (the remains of an _agro-dolce_, and half a bottle
of lachryma,) four battered pieces of lead are presented by him for
inspection, looking very much as if they had just been scraped from the
house-top, but which, when duly put together by our ingenuity, make up
the highly interesting inscription,--"_Imp: Caes: Vespas: Aug: Pont: Max:
Opt; Princip: P. P._," and are no sooner so collocated than our
new-comer seems enchanted at a discovery which he would have us think as
important as any thing lately done in that way. After the making of
which, he expects that we are to carry over this leaden trophy to
England, and is much mortified accordingly at our disheartening remark,
that "it was so easy to write upon lead!" Upon seeing that we are
indisposed to be cheated, he resolved to humiliate us in the eyes of our
friend, which he does effectually by merely glancing at a small
_urceolus_ with a painting on it, and then proclaiming it to be
"_ristaurata_;" a most ungrateful return, as we think, for our
"_restoration_" of him. He has scarcely vanished when a third party,
"happy to catch us just at dinner-time," is announced; he comes with a
mouthful of lies, and a pocketful of trash, and seeing that we are
beginning to wince, is retiring, but suddenly recollecting himself,
pulls up at the door to ask whether it be true that we have _not_ bought
Coco's _Augustus_, since, if we have been so lucky as to purchase it,
Coco has in that case cheated him by pretending to have rec