At the foot of the mountain, and adjoining the Protestant burying-ground, there is a powder-magazine.  Here a French soldier, acting as sentry, paced his weary round.  It was not long before a couple of Roman women passed him.  They saluted him; he saluted them.  They passed behind the magazine.  The sentry, with the courtesy which distinguishes Frenchmen, evidently desired to make his compliments and pay his addresses to the dames.  How could this be done?  Before long, two of his compatriots, evidently out for a holiday, passed him.  He beckoned to one of them, who at once took his gun and turned sentry, while the relieved guard flew to display to the dames his national courtesy.  Before Caper had time to smoke a second cigar, the soldier returned to duty, and the one who had relieved him sprung to pay his addresses.  During the two hours that Caper and Rocjean studied the scenery, guard was relieved four times.

‘Ah!’ said Rocjean, ’we are a gallant nation.  Let us therefore descend and mingle with what the high-minded John Bulls call ’the lower orders.’’

Down they went, and at the first table they came to, they found their shoemaker, the Signore Eugenio Calzolajo, artist in leather, seated with three Roman women.  They all resembled each other like three pins.  The eldest one held a baby, the caro bambino, in her arms; she was probably twenty years old.  The next one was not over eighteen; while the youngest had evidently not passed her sixteenth year.

The artist in leather saluted Caper and Rocjean with the title of Illustrissimi, (they both paid their bills punctually,) and, as he saw that the other tables were full, he at once made room for them, introducing them to his wife and her two sisters.  Caper, who saw that the party had just arrived, and had not as yet had time to order any thing from the waiters, told them that the day being his birthday, it was customary among the North-American Indians always to celebrate it with a feast of roast dogs and bottled porter; but, as neither of these articles were to be found at Monte Testaccio, he should command what they had; and arresting a waiter, he ordered such a supply of food and wine, that the eyes of the three Roman girls opened wide as owls’.  Their tongues were all unloosened at once, as if by magic, and Caper had the satisfaction of seeing that for what a bottle of Hotel Champaigne costs in the United States, he had provided joy unadulterated, and happy memories for many days, for several descendants of the Caesars.

While the wine circulated freely, the eldest, of the unmarried girls, named Eliza, began joking Caper about his being a heretic and ’a little devil,’ and asked him to take off his hat, to see if he had horns.  Caper told her he was as yet unmarried, ... and that among the Indians, bachelors were never allowed to take their hats off before maidens.  ‘But,’ said he, ’what makes you think I am a heretic?  Wasn’t I at Saint Peter’s yesterday, and at the confessionals?’