cleverer and more experienced. She has not only convinced
the old gentleman that she had nothing to do with our escapade, but
that she abhors the idea of it, and would repel with the deepest scorn
any plot which should have the object of bringing you into her
proximity. In the excess of his delight at this, he vowed that if there
should be anything he could do to please her, he would set about it in
a moment; she had but to give her wish a name. On this she very quietly
said what she would like would be that her _zio carissima_ should take
her to the theatre outside the Porto del Popolo, to see Signor Formica.
The old fellow was somewhat startled by this, and consulted with the
Pyramid Doctor and Pitichinaccio; and the result is that Signor
Pasquale and Signor Splendiano are actually going to take Marianna to
the said theatre to-morrow. Pitichinaccio is to be dressed as a
waiting-maid; but he only consented to this on condition that Pasquale
should give him a periwig, over and above the plush doublet, and that
he and the Pyramid Doctor should relieve each other, from time to time,
of the task of carrying him home at night. This has been all agreed
upon; and this remarkable three-bladed-clover will really go, to-morrow
evening, with beautiful Marianna, to see Signor Formica, at the theatre
outside the Porto del Popolo."

It is necessary now to say something as to this theatre, and Signor
Formica himself.

Nothing can be sadder than when, at carnival time in Rome, the
_impressarii_ have been unfortunate in their composers--when the
_primo tenore_ of the Argentina has left his voice on the road--when
the _primo uomo da donna_ in the Teatro Valle is down with the
influenza--in short, when the chief pleasures to which the Romans have
been looking forward have proved disappointments, and Giovedi Grasso
has been shorn, at one fell swoop, of all the hoped-for flowers which
were expected to come at that time into blossom. Immediately alter a
melancholy carnival of this description (in fact, the fasts were
scarcely over) a certain Nicolo Musso opened a theatre outside the
Porto del Popolo, limiting himself to announcing the performance of
minor, improvised _buffonades_. His advertisement was couched in a
clever and witty style of wording, and from it the Romans formed in
advance a favourable opinion of Musso's undertaking, and would have
done so even had they not, in the unsatisfied state of their dramatic
appetites, been eager