over this; the Countess occasionally condoles with him over the draught
of that chimney.'

'H'm! Let us go to the homely: better a drawn sword than a draught.'

They found a homely landlady with neat rooms in the via Babuino, and
having bargained for them for twelve _scudi_ a month, their labors were
over.


MACCARONICAL.

There was, when Caper first came to Rome, an eating-house, nearly
opposite the fountain Trevi, called the Gabioni. It was underground,--in
fact, a series of cellars, popularly conjectured to have been part of
the catacombs. In one of these cellars, resembling with its arched roof
a tunnel, the ceiling so low that you could touch the apex of the round
arch with your hand, every afternoon in autumn and winter, between the
hours of five and six, there assembled, by mutual consent, eight or ten
artists. The table at which they sat would hold no more, and they did
not want it to. Two waiters attended them, Giovanni for food, Santi for
wine and cigars. The long-stemmed Roman lamps of burnished brass, the
bowl that held the oil and wicks resembling the united prows of four
vessels, shedding their light on the white cloth and white walls, made
the old place cheerful. The white and red wine in the thin glass flasks
gleamed brightly, and the food was well cooked and wholesome. Here in
early winter came the sellers of 'sweet olives,' as they called them,
and for two or three cents (_baiocchi_) you could buy a plateful. These
olives were green, and, having been soaked in lime-water, the bitter
taste was taken from them, and they had the flavor of almonds.