Parthenope!" Of course every one knows that Parthenope means Naples, the
Neapolitans and the Neapolitan Province, a siren of that name having
come to final grief somewhere between the Chiatamone and Posilippo. The
mayor got his decoration, and Del Ferice was re-elected; but no one has
inquired into the truth of the statements made in the pamphlet upon
agriculture.

It is clear that a man who was capable of taking so much trouble for so
small a matter would not disappoint his wife when she had set her heart
upon such a trifle as a ticket for the Jubilee. Within three days he had
the promise of what he wanted. A certain lonely lady of high position
lay very ill just then, and it need scarcely be explained that her
confidential servant fell upon the invitation as soon as it arrived and
sold it for a round sum to the first applicant, who happened to be Count
Del Ferice's valet. So the matter was arranged, privately and without
scandal.

All Rome was alive with expectation. The date fixed was the first of
January, and as the day approached the curious foreigner mustered in his
thousands and tens of thousands and took the city by storm. The hotels
were thronged. The billiard tables were let as furnished rooms, people
slept in the lifts, on the landings, in the porters' lodges. The thrifty
Romans retreated to roofs and cellars and let their small dwellings.
People reaching the city on the last night slept in the cabs they had
hired to take them to St. Peter's before dawn. Even the supplies of food
ran low and the hungry fed on what they could get, while the delicate of
taste very often did not feed at all. There was of course the usual
scare about a revolutionary demonstration, to which the natives paid
very little attention, but which delighted the foreigners.