It is in the game and meat market, near the Pantheon, that you can more
fully become acquainted with the street cries of Rome; but the Piazza
Navona excels even this. Passing along there one morning, Caper heard
such an extraordinary piece of vocalization, sounding like a Sioux
war-whoop with its back broken, that he stopped to see what it was all
about. There stood a butcher who had exposed for sale seven small stuck
pigs, all one litter; and if they had been his own children, and died
heretics, he could not have howled over them in a more heart-rending
manner.

About sunrise, and even before it,--for the Romans are early
risers,--you will hear in spring-time a sharp ringing voice under your
window, '_Acqua chetosa! Acqua, chetosa!_' an abridgment of _acque
accetosa_, or water from the fountain of Accetosa, considered a good
aperient, and which is drank before breakfast. Also a voice crying out,
'_Acqua-vi-ta!_' or spirits, drank by the workmen and others at an
expense of a baioccho or two the table-spoonful, for that is all the
small glasses hold. In the early morning, too, you hear the chattering
jackdaws on the roofs; and then, more distinctly than later in the day,
the clocks striking their odd way. The Roman clocks ring from one to six
strokes four times during the twenty-four hours, and not from one to
twelve strokes, as with us. Sunset is twenty-four o'clock, and is noted
by six strokes; an hour after sunset is one o'clock, and is noted by one
stroke; and so on until six hours after, when it begins striking one
again. As the quarter hours are also rung by the clocks, if you happen
to be near one you will have a fine chance to get in a muddle trying to
separate quarters from hours, and Roman time from your own. Another
noise comes from the game of _morra_. Caper was looking out of his
window one morning, pipe in mouth, when he saw two men suddenly face
each other, one of them bringing his arm down very quickly, when the