passing glance, Caper saw he looked good-natured, and so, hailing him,
asked why the skulls and bones were pasted there.

'Who knows?' answered the monk. 'I came this morning from the Campagna;
this is the first time in all my life I have been in this magnificent
city.'

'Can you tell me what that word means up there?' said Caper, pointing to
_immondezzaio_.

'Signore, I can not read.'

'Perhaps it is the name of the street, maybe of the city?'

'It must be so,' answered the priest, 'unless it's a sign of a lottery
office, or a caution against blasphemy up and down the pavement. Those
are the only signs we have in the country, except the government salt
and cigar shops.' ... He took a snuff-box from a pocket in his sleeve,
and with a bow offered a pinch to Mr. Caper. This accepted, they bid
each other profoundly farewell.

'There goes a brick!' remarked the traveler.

Arrived at the entrance-door to the tower of the Capitoline Hill, James
Caper first felt in one pocket for a silver piece and in the other for a
match-box, and finding them both there, rang the bell, and then mounted
to the top of the tower. Lighting a _zigarro scelto_ or papal cigar, he
leaned on both elbows on the parapet, and gazed long and fixedly over
the seven-hilled city.

'And this,' soliloquized he, _is_ Rome. Many a day have I been kept in
school without my dinner because I was not able to parse thee idly by,
_Roma_--Rome--noun of the first declension, feminine gender, that a
quarter of a century ago caused me punishment, I have thee now literally
under foot, and (knocking his cigar) throw ashes on thy head.

'My mission in this great city is not that of a picture-peddler or art
student. I come to investigate the eating, drinking, sleeping
arrangements of the Eternal City--its wine more than its vinegar, its
pretty girls more than its galleries, its _cafes_ more than its
churches. I see from here that I have a fine field to work in. Down
there, clambering over the fallen ruins of the Palace of the Caesars, is
a donkey. Could one have a finer opportunity to see in this a moral and
twist a tail? From those fallen stones, Memory-glorious old
architect--rears a fabric wondrously beautiful; peoples it with eidolons
white and purple-robed, and gleaming jewel-gemmed; or, iron armed,
glistening with flashing light from polished steel--heroes and slaves,
conquerors and conquered; my blood no longer flows to the slow, jerking
measure of a ninete