sculpture-gallery of the Vatican.

In the afternoon Mr. Thompson and I went, for the third or fourth time,
to negotiate with vetturinos. . . . . So far as I know them they are a
very tricky set of people, bent on getting as much as they can, by hook
or by crook, out of the unfortunate individual who falls into their
hands. They begin, as I have said, by asking about twice as much as they
ought to receive; and anything between this exorbitant amount and the
just price is what they thank heaven for, as so much clear gain.
Nevertheless, I am not quite sure that the Italians are worse than other
people even in this matter. In other countries it is the custom of
persons in trade to take as much as they can get from the public,
fleecing one man to exactly the same extent as another; here they take
what they can obtain from the individual customer. In fact, Roman
tradesmen do not pretend to deny that they ask and receive different
prices from different people, taxing them according to their supposed
means of payment; the article supplied being the same in one case as in
another. A shopkeeper looked into his books to see if we were of the
class who paid two pauls, or only a paul and a half for candles; a
charcoal-dealer said that seventy baiocchi was a very reasonable sum for
us to pay for charcoal, and that some persons paid eighty; and Mr.
Thompson, recognizing the rule, told the old vetturino that "a hundred
and fifty scudi was a very proper charge for carrying a prince to
Florence, but not for carrying me, who was merely a very good artist."
The result is well enough; the rich man lives expensively, and pays a
larger share of the profits which people of a different system of
trade-morality would take equally from the poor man. The effect on the
conscience of the vetturino, however, and of tradesmen of all kinds,
cannot be good; their only intent being, not to do justice between man
and man, but to go as deep as they can into all pockets, and to the very