d be like when I got there. The Coliseum
I knew, of course, from a woodcut in the history-book: so to begin with
I plumped that down in the middle. The rest had to be patched up from
the little grey market-town where twice a year we went to have our hair
cut; hence, in the result, Vespasian's amphitheatre was approached by
muddy little streets, wherein the Red Lion and the Blue Boar, with
Somebody's Entire along their front, and 'Commercial Room' on their
windows; the doctor's house, of substantial red-brick; and the facade of
the New Wesleyan chapel, which we thought very fine, were the chief
architectural ornaments: while the Roman populace pottered about in
smocks and corduroys, twisting the tails of Roman calves and inviting
each other to beer in musical Wessex. From Rome I drifted on to other
cities, faintly heard of--Damascus, Brighton (Aunt Eliza's ideal),
Athens, and Glasgow, whose glories the gardener sang; but there was a
certain sameness in my conception of all of them: that Wesleyan chapel
would keep cropping up everywhere. It was easier to go a-building among
those dream-cities where no limitations were imposed, and one was sole
architect, with a free hand. Down a delectable street of cloud-built
palaces I was mentally pacing, when I happened upon the Artist.

He was seated at work by the roadside, at a point whence the cool large
spaces of the downs, juniper-studded, swept grandly westwards. His
attributes proclaimed him of the artist tribe: besides, he wore
knickerbockers like myself,--a garb confined, I was aware, to boys and
artists. I knew I was not to bother him with questions, nor look over
his shoulder and breathe in his ear--they didn't like it, this _genus
irritabile_. But there was nothing about staring in my code of
instructions, the point having somehow been overlooked: so, squatting
down on the grass, I devoted myself to the passionate absorbing of every
detail. At the end of five minutes there was not a button on him that I
could not have passed an examination in; and the wearer himself of that
homespun suit was probably less familiar with its pattern and texture
than I was. Once he looked up, nodded, half held out his tobacco pouch,
mechanically as it were, then, returning it to his pocket, resumed his
work, and I my mental photography.

[Illustration: '"_You haven't been to Rome, have you?_"']

After another five minutes or so had passed, he remarked, without
looking my way: 'Fine afterno