artist, accompanying him on a small bay beast that was extremely fond of
showing his heels to the surrounding objects. Leaving Segni about ten
o'clock in the morning, they had hardly reached a bridle path down the
mountain, nothing more in fact than a gully, when they were joined by a
cavalcade of four other Segnians. One of them, the 'funny fellow' of the
party, was mounted on a very meek-looking donkey, and enlivened the hot
ride across the valley of the Sacco by spasmodic attempts to lead the
cavalcade and come in ahead of the others. He had a lively time as they
approached the city, and a joke with every foot passenger on the way;
but Gaetano, whose reserve was one of his strong points, and who was
anxious to enter Anagni under favorable auspices, gave the word to
Caper, and in a few minutes they left cavalcade and donkey-rider far
behind.

Anagni, the ancient _Anagnia_, was the capital of the Hernici. The
favorite residence, in the middle ages, of several of the popes, it
still shows in its building marks of the wealth it once enjoyed. Having
stabled their horses with a friend of Gaetano's, who insisted on their
finishing the best part of a _bottiglia_ of red wine with him, the
artist, under the landlord's guidance, set out to see the town. They
climbed up street to the cathedral, a fine old pile trembling with music
and filled with worshippers, paintings of saints in extremis, flowers,
wax candles, votary offerings, and heat; then coming out, and feeling
wolfish, looked round for a place where they could find dinner! Here it
was! a scene that would have cheered Teniers: a very large room, its
walls brown with smoke; long wooden tables, destitute of cloth, but
crowded with country people eating, drinking, talking, enjoying
themselves to the utmost extent. Forks were invisible, but every man had
his own knife, and Caper, similarly provided, whipped out his long
pocket weapon and commenced an attack on roast lamb and bread, as if
time were indeed precious. Wine was provided at Fair price; and, with
fruit, he managed to cry at last, 'Hold, enough!'

Gaetano, having a message for a young priest in the seminary there,
asked Caper how he would like to see the interior of the building, and
the way the _prete_ lived? Caper assenting, they entered a fine large
establishment with broad walls and high ceilings, and mounting to the
second story and knocking at the door of a chamber, they were admitted
by a tall, thin, sallow