The Cafe Greco, like the belle of many seasons, lights up best at night.  In morning, in deshabille, not all the venerability of its age can make it respectable.  Caper declares that on a fresh, sparkling day, in the merry spring-time, he once really enjoyed a very early breakfast there; and that, with the windows of the Omnibus-room open, the fresh air blowing in, and the sight of a pretty girl at the fourth-story window of a neighboring house, feeding a bird and tending a rose-bush, the old cafe was rose-colored.

This may be so; but seven o’clock in the evening was the time when the Greco was in its prime.  Then the front-room was filled with Germans, the second room with Russians and English, the third room—­the Omnibus—­with Americans, English, and French, and the fourth, or back-room, was brown with Spaniards.  The Italians were there, in one or two rooms, but in a minority; only those who affected the English showed themselves, and aired their knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon tongue and habits.

‘I habituate myself,’ said a red-haired Italian of the Greco to Caper, ’to the English customs.  I myself lave with hot water from foot to head, one time in three weeks, like the English.  It is an idea of the most superb, and they tell me I am truly English for so performing.  I have not yet arrive to perfection in the lessons of box, but I have a smart cove of a bool-dog.’

Caper told him that his resemblance to an English ‘gent’ was perfect, at which the Italian, ignorant of the meaning of that fearful word, smiled assent.

The waiter has hardly brought you your small cup of caffe nero, and you are preparing to light a cigar, to smoke while you drink your coffee, when there comes before you a wandering bouquet-seller.  It is, perhaps, the dead of winter; long icicles are hanging from fountains, over which hang frosted oranges, frozen myrtles, and frost-nipped olives, Alas! such things are seen in Rome; and yet, for a dime you are offered a bouquet of camellia japonicas.  By the way, the name camellia is derived from Camellas, a learned Jesuit; probably La Dame aux Camelias had not a similar origin.  You don’t want the flowers.

‘Signore,’ says the man, ‘behold a ruined flower-merchant!’

You are unmoved.  Have you not seen or heard of, many a time, the heaviest kind of flour-merchants ruined by too heavy speculations, burst up so high the crows couldn’t fly to them; and heard this without changing a muscle of your face?

‘But, signore, do buy a bouquet to please your lady?’

‘Haven’t one.’

‘Altro!’ answers the man, triumphantly, ’whom did I see the other day, with these eyes, (pointing at his own,) in a magnificent carriage, beside the most beautiful Donna Inglesa in Rome? Iddio giusto!’....  At this period, he sees he has made a ten strike, and at once follows it up by knocking down the ten-pin boy, so as to clear the alley, thus:  ‘For her sake, signore.’