Caper, sitting in the Omnibus one evening with Rocjean, was accosted by a very seedy-looking man, with a very peculiar expression of face, wherein an awful struggle of humor to crowd down pinching poverty gleamed brightly.  He offered for sale an odd volume of one of the early fathers of the Church.  Its probable value was a dime, whereas he wanted two dollars for it.

‘Why do you ask such a price?’ asked Rocjean, ’you never can expect to sell it for a twentieth part of that.’

‘The moral of which,’ said the seedy man, no longer containing the struggling humor, but letting it out with a hearty laugh; ’the moral of which is—­give me half a baioccho!’

Ever after that, Caper never saw the man, who henceforth went by the name of La Morale e un Mezzo Baioccho! without pointing the moral with a copper coin.  Not content with this, he once took him round to the Lepre restaurant, and ordered a right good supper for him.  Several other artists were with him, and all declared that no one could do better justice to food and wine.  After he had eaten all he could hold, and drank a little more than he could carry, he arose from table, having during the entire meal sensibly kept silence, and wiping his mouth on his coat-sleeve, spoke: 

‘The moral this evening, signori, I shall carry home in my stomach.’

As he was going out of the restaurant, one of the artists asked him why he left two rolls of bread on the table; saying they were paid for, and belonged to him.

‘I left them,’ said he, ’out of regard for the correct usages of society; but, having shown this, I return to pocket them.’

This he did at once, and Caper stood astonished at the seedy-beggar’s phraseology.

In addition to these characters, wandering musicians find their way into the cafe, jugglers, peddlers of Roman mosaics and jewelry, plaster-casts and sponges, perfumery and paint-brushes.  Or a peripatetic shoemaker, with one pair of shoes, which he recklessly offers for sale to giant or dwarf.  One morning he found a purchaser—­a French artist—­who put them on, and threw away his old shoes.  Fatal mistake.  Two hours afterward, the buyer was back in the Greco, with both big toes sticking out of the ends of his new shoes, looking for that cochon of a shoemaker.

To those who read men like books, the Greco offers a valuable circulating library.  The advantage, too, of these artistical works is, that one needs not be a Mezzofanti to read the Russian, Spanish, German, French, Italian, English, and other faces that pass before one panoramically.  There sits a relation of a hospodar, drinking Russian tea; he pours into a large cup a small glass of brandy, throws in a slice of lemon, fills up with hot tea.  Do you think of the miles he has traveled, in a telega, over snow-covered steppes, and the smoking samovar of tea that awaited him, his journey for the day ended?  Had he lived when painting and sculpture were in their ripe prime, what a fiery life he would have thrown into his works!  As it is, he drinks cognac, hunts wild-boars in the Pontine marshes—­and paints Samson and Delilah, after models.