to get a view of the foundations of the north-west corner of the palace, which were said to be weak, without knocking a hole through a wall upon which depended such solidity as there was.  It was useless, he said.  The snuffy gentleman could ask the Baron, if he pleased, and the Baron could do what he liked since the property now belonged to him:  but he, the mason, would not lay hand to pick or crowbar without the Baron’s express authorization.  The Baron was a Senator of the Kingdom, said the mason, and could therefore of course send him to penal servitude in the galleys for life, if he pleased.  That is the average Roman workman’s idea of justice.  The snuffy expert, who looked very much like a poor priest in plain clothes, though he evidently knew his business, made no reply, nor any attempt to help the mason’s conscience with money.

But he stood a little while by the wall, with his lantern in his hands, and presently put his ear to the damp stones, and listened.

“There is running water somewhere not far off,” he said, looking keenly at the workman.

“It is certainly not wine,” answered the man, with a rough laugh, for he thought it a very good joke.

“Are there any ‘lost waters’ under the palace?” asked the expert.

“I do not know,” replied the mason, looking away from the lantern towards the gloom of the cellars.

“I believe,” said the snuffy gentleman, setting down his lantern, and taking a large pinch from a battered silver snuff-box, on which the arms of Pius Ninth were still distinguishable, “I believe that the nearest ‘lost water’ to this place is somewhere under the Vicolo del Soldati.”

“I do not know.”

The expert skilfully inserted the brown dust into his nostrils with his right thumb, scarcely wasting a grain in the operation.

“You do not seem to know much,” he observed thoughtfully, and took up his lantern again.

“I know what I have been taught,” replied the mason without resentment.

The expert glanced at him quickly, but said nothing more.  His inspection was finished, and he led the way out of the intricate cellars as if he knew them by heart, though he had only passed through them once, and he left the palace on foot when he had brushed some of the dust from his shabby clothes.

The porter looked enquiringly at the two men, as they filled little clay pipes that had cane stems, standing under the deep entrance.

“Not even the price of half a litre of wine,” said the mason in answer to the mute question.

“Church stuff,” observed the carpenter discontentedly.

The porter nodded gravely, and the men nodded to him as they went out into the street.  They had nothing more to do that day, and they turned into the dark little wine shop, where the withered bush stuck out of the blackened grating.  They sat down opposite each other, with the end of the grimy board of the table between them, and the carpenter made a sign.  The host brought a litre measure of thin red wine and set it down between them with two tumblers.  He was ghastly pale, flabby and sullen, with a quarter of an inch of stubbly black beard on his unhealthy face.