nto the glass barrel, and produced a slip of paper; an assistant
carried it to the judges--one resembled Mr. Pecksniff--and then the
crier announced the number, and, presto! on a large blackboard the
number appeared, so that every one could see it.

Caper found the number on his ticket, and was marking it off, when a
countryman at his side asked him if he would see if the number was on
his ticket, as he could not read figures. Caper accordingly looked it
over, and finding that it was there, marked it off for him.

'_Padrone mio_, thank you,' said the man, evidently determined, since he
had found out a scholar, to keep close by him.

'Seventeen!' called out the tombola-crier.

'C----o!' said the contadino, with joy in his face; 'seventeen is always
my lucky number. My wife was seventeen years old when I married her. My
donkey was killed by the railroad cars the other day, and he gave just
seventeen groans before he died. I shall have luck to-day.'

We refrain from writing the exclamation the contadino prefaced his
remarks with, for fear the reader might have a good Italian
dictionary--an article, by the way, the writer has never yet seen.
Suffice it to say, that the exclamations made use of by the Romans, men
and women, not only of the lower but even the middling class, are of a
nature exceedingly natural, and plainly point to Bacchic and Phallic
sources. The _bestemmia_ of the Romans is viler than the blasphemy of
English or Americans.

It happened that the countryman had a seventeen on his ticket, and Caper
marked it off, at the same time asking him how much he would take for
his pantaloons. These pantaloons were made of a goat's skin; the long
white wool, inches in length, left on and hanging down below the knees
of the man, gave him a Pan-like look, and with the word tombola,
suggested the lines of that good old song--save the maledictory part of
it:

'Tombolin had no breeches to wear,
So he bought him a goat's skin, to make him a pair.'

These breeches were not for sale; they were evidently the joy and the
pride of the countryman, who had no heart for trade, having by this time
two numbers in one line marked off, only wanting an adjoining one to win
the _terno_.

'If you were to win the _terno_, what would you do with it?' Caper asked
him.

'_Accidente!_ I'd buy a barrel of wine, and a hog, and a--'

'Thirty-two!' shouted the crier.

'It's on your paper,' said Caper to him, marking it off; 'and yo