w it when I was young, and the keyboard was strangely made;
for there were two black keys together everywhere where we have one, the
first being for the sharp of the natural below it, and the second for
the flat of the natural above; and this meant that the ingenious builder
had thought he could get rid of the 'wolf' and produce an instrument
with the combined advantages of the even temper and the uneven; and any
one who does not know what that means may ask a tuner to explain it for
him or not, just as he pleases; but the old organ had double black keys,
for I saw and touched them myself, and that was the very instrument to
which Stradella sang on the afternoon of Saint John's Eve so long ago.
It has probably been destroyed altogether, but Rome is a great place for
treasuring rubbish and rombowline, and perhaps the old keyboard still
exists, with stacks of wooden and metal pipes and bundles of worm-eaten
trackers, all piled up together and forgotten in some corner of the
crypt, or in some high belfry room or long-closed attic above the
gorgeous ceiling of the Basilica.

It is a long distance from the Palazzo Altieri to the Lateran, and the
Canons sent one of their coaches to convey Stradella to the church. He
brought Ortensia with him, and found Cucurullo already waiting at the
transept door.

'It is impossible to get in by this way, sir,' said the hunchback,
coming to the window of the carriage. 'All Rome is here, from the Sacred
College and the Queen of Sweden to the poorest notary's clerk, and it
would take an hour to make your way through the crowd. Below the
tabernacle the church is nearly half full of country people.'

'You will have to go in by the main door,' Stradella said to Ortensia.
'Cucurullo will take you as far up the church as possible, and will not
leave your side till I come. As for me, I must go round by the sacristy.
Get up behind, Cucurullo, and tell the coachman to take us to the other
entrance.'

Cucurullo obeyed with some difficulty, for a crowd of young idlers of
the poorer sort had collected to see the cardinals and nobles go in, and
they pressed upon him to touch his hump for luck, which should be at
least double on such a day; and most of them blessed him, lest he should
look round angrily and cast the Evil Eye upon them. But as he was short
he found it hard to reach the footman's hanging strap, till a couple of
strong fellows lifted him bodily and set him on the footboard. He
submitted