u will only plant them
cheerfully.

Do not think it strange if a doctor on the stage recommends conserve of
vipers to a consumptive patient; for these poisonous reptiles are caught
in large numbers in the mountains back of Rome, and sold to the city
apothecaries, who prepare large quantities of them for their customers.

When you see, perhaps the hero of the play, thrown into a paroxysm of
anger and fiery wrath by some untoward event, proceed calmly to cut up
two lemons, squeeze into a tumbler their juice, and then drink it
down--learn that it is a common Roman remedy for anger.

Or if, when a piece of crockery, or other fragile article, may be
broken, you notice one of the actors carefully counting the pieces, do
not think it is done in order to reconstruct the article, but to guide
him in the purchase of a lottery-ticket.

When you notice that on one of his hands the second finger is twined
over the first, of the Rightful-heir in presence of the Wrongful-heir,
you may know that the first is guarding himself against the Evil Eye
supposed to belong to the second.

And--the list could be extended to an indefinite length--you will learn
more, by going to the Capranica.

At the Metastasio Theatre there was a French vaudeville company,
passably good, attended by a French audience, the majority officers and
soldiers. Here were presented such attractive plays as _La Femme qui
Mord_, or 'The Woman who Bites;' _Sullivan_, the hero of which gets
_bien gris_, very gray, that is, blue, that is, very tipsy, and at the
close, astonishes the audience with the moral: To get tight is human!
_Dalilah_, etc., etc. The French are not very well beloved by the Romans
pure and simple; it is not astonishing, therefore, that their language
should be laughed at. One morning Rome woke up to find placards all
over the city, headed:

FRENCH

TAUGHT IN THIRTY-SIX LESSONS!

Apply to Monsieur SO-AND-SO.

A few days afterward appeared a fearful wood-cut, the head of a jackass,
with his tongue hanging down several inches, and under it, these words,
in Italian: 'The only tongue yet learnt in less than thirty-six
lessons!'

Caper, seated one night in the parquette of the Metastasio, had at his
side a French infantry soldier. In conversation he asked him:

'How long have you been in Rome?'

'Three years, _Mossu_.'

'Wouldn't you like to return to France?'

'Not at all.'

'Why not?'

'Wine is cheap, here, tobacco not dear, the