many more famous or pretentious restaurants,
but never have dinners tasted so good as at this little Roman
_trattoria_ where we had to consider the _centesimi_ in the price of
every dish, and the quarter of a flask of cheap _Chianti_ shared between
us was an extravagance, and we ate with the appetite that came of having
eaten nothing all day save rolls and coffee for breakfast, and fruit and
rolls for lunch, that we might afford a dinner at night. And I have
dined in many restaurants of gilded and mirrored magnificence, but in
none I thought so well decorated as the _Posta_ with its bare walls and
coarse clean linen and no ornament at all, except the stand in the
centre where we could pick out our fruit or our vegetable. Nor has any
restaurant, crowded with the creations of Paquin and Worth, seemed more
brilliant than the _Posta_ filled with officers. In Philadelphia I had
never seen an army officer in uniform in my life; at the _Posta_ I saw
hardly anything else. We were surrounded by lieutenants and captains and
colonels, and as I watched them come and go with clank and clatter of
spurs and swords, and military salutes at the door, and military cloaks
thrown dramatically off and on, and gold braid shining, I began to think
a big standing army worth the money to any country, on condition that it
always went in uniform--on condition, I might now add, that this uniform
is not khaki, then not yet heard of. When the old spare, grizzled
General, always the last, appeared and all the other officers rose upon
his entrance, our dinner was dignified into a ceremony. Sometimes, I
fancied he felt his importance more than anybody, for he is the only man
I have ever known courageous enough in public to begin his dinner with
cake and finish it with soup.

Now and then, on very special occasions, when we had sent off an article
or received a cheque, we went to the _Falcone_ and celebrated the event
by feasting on _Maccheroni alla Napolitana_, _Cinghale all'Agra Dolce_
and wine of Orvieto. The _Falcone_ was another accident of our tramps,
though we afterwards found it starred in Baedeker. It looked the
centuries old it was said to be, such a shabby, sombre crypt of a
restaurant that I accepted without question the tradition it cherished
of itself as a haunt of the Caesars, and was prepared to believe the
waiters when they pointed out the mark of the Imperial head on the
greasy walls, just as the waiters of the Cheshire Cheese in London