having their teeth rubbed with a toothbrush and their nails pared.

In half an hour more, the keeper's labors were over, and Caper, giving
him a present for his inviting him to assist as spectator at _la
toilette bien béte_, or beastly dressing, walked off to breakfast,
evidently thinking that _Art_ was not dead in that menagerie, whatever
Rocjean might say of its state of health in the world at large.

'To think,' soliloquized Caper, 'to think of what a bootless thing it
is, to shoe-black o'er an elephant!'




ROMAN MODELS.


The traveler visiting Rome notices in the Piazza di Spagna, along the
Spanish steps, and in the Condotti, Fratina and Sistina streets, either
sunning themselves or slowly sauntering along, many picturesquely-dressed
men, women, and children, who, as he soon learns, are the
professional models of the artists. For a fee of from fifty
cents to a dollar, they will give their professional services for a
sitting four hours in length, and those of them who are most in demand
find little difficulty during the 'business season,' say from the months
of November to May, in earning from one and a half to two dollars, and
even more, every day. Many of them, living frugally, manage to make what
is considered a fortune among the _contadini_ in a few years; and Hawks,
the English artist, who spent a summer at Saracenesca, found, to his
astonishment, that one of the leading men of the town, one who loaned