approaches you, and with deep, rough voice, reminding you of the lowing
of the large grey oxen they once belonged to, begs you to buy them. Then
he facetiously raises one to each side of his head, and you have a
figure that Jerome Bosch would have rejoiced to transfer to canvas. His
portrait has been painted by more than one artist.

Caper, sitting in the Omnibus one evening with Rocjean, was accosted by
a very seedy-looking man, with a very peculiar expression of face,
wherein an awful struggle of humor to crowd down pinching poverty
gleamed brightly. He offered for sale an odd volume of one of the early
fathers of the Church. Its probable value was a dime, whereas he wanted
two dollars for it.

'Why do you ask such a price?' asked Rocjean, 'you never can expect to
sell it for a twentieth part of that.'

'The moral of which,' said the seedy man, no longer containing the
struggling humor, but letting it out with a hearty laugh; 'the moral of
which is--give me half a baioccho!'

Ever after that, Caper never saw the man, who henceforth went by the
name of _La Morale é un Mezzo Baioccho_! without pointing the moral with
a copper coin. Not content with this, he once took him round to the
_Lepre_ restaurant, and ordered a right good supper for him. Several
other artists were with him, and all declared that no one could do
better justice to food and wine. After he had eaten all he could hold,
and drank a little more than he could carry, he arose from table, having
during the entire meal sensibly kept silence, and wiping his mouth on
his coat-sleeve, spoke: