e_ are
making their positively first appearances for the season. Look at that
French soldier in company with another, who is passing under a balcony,
when a tiny bunch of flowers falls, or is thrown at him: he stoops to
grasp it: too late, _mon brave_, a Roman boy is ahead of you: no use
swearing; so he grasps his comrade by the arm, and points to the
balcony, which is not more than six feet above his head.

'_Mon Dieu, qu'elle est gentille!_'

And there stands the beauty, a thorough soldier's girl; weighs her
hundred and seventy pounds, has cheeks like new-cut beefsteaks, hair
black as charcoal, eyes bright as fire, and an arm capable of cooking
for a regiment. She is dressed in full Albanian costume, has the dew of
the fields in her air, and oh, when she smiles, she shows such splendid
teeth!--the _contadine_ have them, and don't ruin them by continual
eating! The soldier stops, 'Oh lord, she is neat!' He wants to return
her flowery compliment with a similar one; but, _Tu bleu!_ one can't buy
bouquets on four sous a day income--even in Rome: so he looks around for
a waif, and spies on the pavement something green; he gallantly throws
it up, and with a smile and, wave of the hand like a Chevalier Bayard on
a bender, he bids adieu to the fair maiden. He threw up half a head of
lettuce.

'_Ach mein Gott! wollen sie nur?_' and in return for a double handful of
_confetti_ flung into a carriage full of German artists ahead of him,
'bang!' comes into Caper's vehicle a shower of lime pills and other
stunners--not including the language--and he is in for it. A minute, and
the whole Corso rains, hails, and pelts flowers and white pills; nothing
else is visible: up there laugh down at them whole balconies, filled
with delirious men and women, throwing on their devoted heads, American,
French, German, rattling, tumbling, fistfuls of _confetti_ and wild
flowers:--even that half head of lettuce was among the things flying!
English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Germans, Italians, Americans, and those
wild northern bloods--all grit and game--the Russians, are down on them
like a thousand of bricks. Hurrah! the carriages move on--they are safe.
Hurrah for a new fight with fresh faces! _Avanti!_

Comes a carriage load of wild Rustians. Ivan, the _mondjik_, fresh from
the Nevskoi Prospekt, now drives for the first time in the Corso--_Dam
na vodka, Sabakoutchelovek_, thinks he. Yes, my sweet son of a dog, thou
shalt have _vodka_ to drink