combination of a
thinker and an athlete, half literary man, half gladiator. The common
phrase 'an old head on young shoulders' described him as well as any
phrase could. The shoulders were perhaps the more remarkable, but the
head was not to be despised. A man who could break a horseshoe and tear
in two a pack of cards, and who spent his spare time in studying Hegel
and Kant, when he was not writing political correspondence for
newspapers, deserved to be considered an exception. He seemed to have no
material wants, and yet he had the animal power of enjoying material
things even in excess, which is rare. He had a couple of rooms in the
Via della Frezza, between the Corso and the Ripetta, where he lived in a
rather mysterious way, though he made no secret about it. Occasionally
an acquaintance climbed the steep stairs, but no one ever got him to
open the door nor to give any sign that he was at home, if he were
within. A one-eyed cobbler acted as porter downstairs, from morning till
night, astride upon his bench and ever at work, an ill-savoured old pipe
in his mouth.

"You may try," he answered, when any one asked for Griggs. "Who knows?
Perhaps Sor Paolo will open. Try a little, if you have patience."

Patience being exhausted, the visitor came down the five flights again,
and remonstrated with the cobbler.

"I did not say anything," he would reply, in a cloud of smoke. "Many
have tried. I told you to try. Am I to tell you that no one has ever
got in? Why? To disoblige you? If you want anything of Sor Paolo, say
it to me. Or come again."

"But he will not open," objected the visitor.

"Oh, that is true," returned the man of one eye. "But if you wish to
try, I am not here to hinder you. This is the truth."

Now and then, some one more inquisitive suggested that there might be a
lady in the question. The one eye then fixed itself in a vacant stare.

"Females?" the cobbler would exclaim. "Not even cats. What passes
through your head? He is alone always. If you do not believe me, you can
try. I do not say Sor Paolo will not open the door. A door is a door, to
be opened."

"But since I have tried!"

"And I, what can I do? You have come, you have seen, you have knocked,
and no one has opened. May the Madonna accompany you! I can do nothing."

So even the most importunate of visitors departed at last. But Griggs
had taken Dalrymple up to his lodgings more than once, and they had sat
there for an hour talking over