ne or two of
his dogs hung back, and the artist, dropping a pencil, suddenly stooped
to pick it up, when one of the savage creatures, thinking or
'instincting' that a stone was coming at him, rushed in, with loud
barking, to make mince-meat of the German noble. He seized his
camp-stool, and kept the dog at bay; but in a moment the whole pack were
down on him. Just at this instant, in rushed Rocjean, staff in hand,
beating the beasts right and left, and shouting to the shepherd, who was
but a short distance off, to call off his dogs. But the _pecorajo_,
evidently a cross-grained fellow, only blackguarded the artists, until
Rocjean, whose blood was up, swore if he did not call them off, he would
shoot them, pulling a revolver from his pocket and aiming at the most
savage dog as he spoke. The shepherd only blackguarded him the more,
and, just as the dog grabbed him by the pantaloons, Rocjean pulled the
trigger, and with foaming jaws and blood pouring from his mouth, the dog
fell dead at his feet. The shot scared the other dogs, who fled, tails
under. The shepherd ran for the entrance of a cave, and came out in a
minute with a single-barreled gun: coming down to within twenty feet of
Rocjean, he cocked it, and taking aim, screamed out: 'Give me ten
_scudi_ for that dog, or I fire.'

'Do you see that pistol?' said Rocjean to the shepherd, while he held up
his revolver, 'I have five loads in it yet.' And then advancing straight
toward him, with death in his eyes, he told him to throw down his gun,
or he was a dead man.... Down fell the gun. Rocjean picked it up.
'To-morrow,' said he, 'inquire of the chief of police in Rome for this
gun and for the ten _scudi_!'

They were never called for.

'You see,' said Caper, as, shortly after this little excitement, the
one-horse vetturo, bearing Caesar and his fortunes, hove in sight, and
they entered and returned to Rome; 'you see how charming it is to sketch
on the Campagna.'

'Very,' replied Von Bluhmen; 'but, my dear Rocjean, how long were you in
America?'

'Twelve years.'

'_Main Gott!_ they were not wasted.'

BACCHUS IN ROME.

It is not at all astonishing that a god who was born to the tune of
Jove's thunderbolts, should have escaped scot-free from the thunders of
the Vatican, and should prove at the present time one of the strongest
opponents to the latter kind of fire-works. We read, in the work of that
learned Jesuit, Galtruchius, that--

'Bacchus was usually