While they were all busily drinking and talking, Caper had noticed that the wine was beginning to have its effects on the large crowd who had assembled at the Osterias and Trattorias around the foot of the Bacchic mountain.  Laughing and talking, shouting and singing, began to be in the ascendant, and gravity was voted indecent.

‘Ha!’ said Rocjean, ‘for one hour of the good old classic days!’

‘What!’ answered Caper, ’with those seventy thousand old Jews you were preaching about the other day?’

’Never!—­with the Bacchante.  But here our friends are off:  let us help them into the carriage.’

As the sun went down, the minenti began to crowd toward Rome.  More than one spadina flashed in the hands of the slightly-tight maidens who were on foot.  Those of the men who had carriages, foreseeing the inflammable spirit aroused, packed the women in by themselves, gave them lighted torches, and cut them adrift, to float down the Corso; they following in separate carriages.

* * * * *

’Ah! really, and pray, Mrs. Jobson, don’t you think that it’s—­ah! a beautiful sight; they tell me—­ah! it’s the peasants returning from visiting the shrine of the—­ah!  Madonna—­ah?’

’And I think it is most charming, Mister Lushington; and I remember me now that Lady Fanny Errol, poor thing, said it would be a charming sight.  And the poor creatures seem much happier than our own lower orders; they do, to be sure.’

* * * * *

‘O Lord!’ groaned Caper, as he overheard the above dialogue, ’allow me to retire.’

CAPER ‘STARTS’ A MENAGERIE.

As an animal-painter, Mr. Caper was continually hunting up materials for sketches.  He made excursions into the Campagna, to see the long-horned gray oxen and the hideous buffaloes; watching the latter along the yellow Tiber, when, in the spring-time, they coquetted in the mud and water.  He sketched goats and sheep, tended by the picturesquely-dressed shepherds and guarded by the fierce dogs that continually encircled them.  In four words, he studied animal-ated nature.

On his first arrival in Rome, he had purchased one of those sprightly little vetturo dogs, all wool and tail, that the traveler remarks mounted on top of the traveling carriages that enter and leave Rome.  With a firm foothold, they stand on the very top of all the baggage that may be piled on the roof of the coach; and there, standing guard and barking fiercely, seem to thoroughly enjoy the confusion attendant on starting the horses or unloading the baggage.  They are seen around the carriage-stands where public hacks are hired, and as soon as one moves off, up jumps the vetturo dog alongside the driver, and never leaves the vehicle until it stops; then, if he sees another hack returning to the city, he will jump into that, and be carried back triumphant.  This sounds like fiction; but its truth will be confirmed by any one who has ever noticed the peculiarities of this breed of dogs, which love to ride.