ement, music, coffee, and a cigar; pretty girls
with tender eyes; the prince's stables, with hawks nailed to the doors,
and blood horses in their stalls; contadini, cowbells, jackasses; ride
home on horseback by moonlight; head swimming, love coming in, fun
coming out. Exit festival the second.

GAVIGNANO was the scene of the third festival; it is a small town, lying
at the foot of Segni. Caper went there on horseback, and, after a
regular break-neck ride down the mountain, the path winding round like a
string on an apple, arrived there in time to escape a pouring rain, and
find himself in a large hall with three beautiful sisters, the Roses of
Montelanico, numerous contadini friends, and the wine bottles going
round in a very lively and exhilarating manner. The rain ceasing, Caper
walked out to see the town, when his arm was suddenly seized, and,
turning round, who should it be but Pepe the rash, Pepe the
personification of Figaro: a character impossible for northern people to
place outside of a madhouse, yet daily to be found in southern Europe.
Rash, headstrong, full of deviltry, splendid appetite, and not much
conscience--volatile, mocking, irrepressible.

Pepe seized Caper by the arm with a loud laugh, and, only saying,
'_Evviva_, Signor' Giacomo, come along!' without giving him breathing
time, rushed him up narrow streets, down dirty alleys, through a crowd
of mules, mud, and mankind, until they both caught a glimpse of a small
church with green garlands over the door. Hauling Caper inside, he
dragged him through a long aisle crowded with kneeling worshippers,
smashed him down on a bench in front of the main altar, tearing half a
yard of crimson damask and nearly upsetting the priest officiating; and
then, while Caper (red in the face, and totally unfit to hear the fine
chorus of voices, among which Mustafa's, the soprano, came ringing out)
was composing himself to listen, Pepe grabbed him with a 'Music's over;
_andiamo_ (let's go). Did you hear Mustafa? _Bella voce_, tra-la-leeeee!
Mustafa's a contadino; I know his pa and ma; they changed him when only
five years old. Thought he was a Turk, didn't you? He sings in the
Sistine chapel. Pretty man, fat; positively not a sign of a beard.'

Struggling to escape, Caper was rushed out of church, and into a _caffe_
to have a tumblerful of boiling coffee poured down his throat, and again
be expressed up hill at a break-neck rate, catching sights of
tumble-down old house