lace when and where I please to appoint. Let him
meet me this very midnight, and alone, in the fifth chamber of the
Appartamento Borgia.'

"'The Appartamento Borgia!' I exclaimed in consternation. 'The saloons
which the wicked Pope Alexander the Sixth nocturnally perambulates,
mingling poisons that have long lost their potency for Cardinals who have
long lost their lives!'

"'Have a care!' he exclaimed sharply. 'You speak to his late Holiness's
most intimate friend.'

"'Then,' I answered, 'you must obviously be the Devil, and I am not at
present empowered to negotiate with your Infernal Majesty. Consider,
however, the peril and inconvenience of visiting at dead of night rooms
closed for generations. Think of the chills and cobwebs. Weigh the
probability of his Holiness being devoured by rats.'

"'I guarantee his Holiness absolute immunity from cold,' he replied, 'and
that none of my subjects shall molest him either going or returning.'

"'But,' I objected, 'granting that you are not the Devil, how the devil,
let me ask, do you expect to gain admittance at midnight to the
Appartamento Borgia?'

"'Think you I cannot pass through a stone wall?' answered he, and vanished
in an instant. A tremendous scampering of rats immediately ensued, then all
was silence.

"On recovering in some measure from my astounded condition, I caused strict
search to be made throughout the shop. Nothing came to light but
herbalists' stuff and ordinary medicines. And now, Holy Father, your
Holiness's resolution? Reflect well. This Rattila may be the King of the
Rats, or he may be Beelzebub in person."

Alexander the Eighth was principally considered by his contemporaries in
the light of a venerable fox, but the lion had by no means been omitted
from his composition.

"All powers of good forbid," he exclaimed, "that a Pope and a Prince should
shrink from peril which the safety of the State summons him to encounter!
I will confront this wizard, this goblin, in the place of his own
appointing, under his late intimate friend's very nose. I am a man of many
transgressions, but something assures me that Heaven will not deem this a
fit occasion for calling them to remembrance. Time presses; I lead on;
follow, Cardinal Barbadico, follow! Yet stay, let us not forget temporal
and spiritual armouries."

And hastily providing himself with a lamp, a petronel, a bunch of keys, a
crucifix, a vial of holy water, and a manual of exorcisms, the Pope pas