on we're having: going far to-day?'

'No, I'm not going any farther than this,' I replied; 'I _was_ thinking
of going on to Rome: but I've put it off.'

'Pleasant place, Rome,' he murmured: 'you'll like it.' It was some
minutes later that he added: 'But I wouldn't go just now, if I were you:
too jolly hot.'

'_You_ haven't been to Rome, have you?' I inquired.

'Rather,' he replied briefly: 'I live there.'

This was too much, and my jaw dropped as I struggled to grasp the fact
that I was sitting there talking to a fellow who lived in Rome. Speech
was out of the question: besides I had other things to do. Ten solid
minutes had I already spent in an examination of him as a mere stranger
and artist; and now the whole thing had to be done over again, from
the changed point of view. So I began afresh, at the crown of his soft
hat, and worked down to his solid British shoes, this time investing
everything with the new Roman halo; and at last I managed to get out:
'But you don't really live there, do you?' never doubting the fact, but
wanting to hear it repeated.

'Well,' he said, good-naturedly overlooking the slight rudeness of my
query, 'I live there as much as I live anywhere. About half the year
sometimes. I've got a sort of a shanty there. You must come and see it
some day.'

'But do you live anywhere else as well?' I went on, feeling the
forbidden tide of questions surging up within me.

'O yes, all over the place,' was his vague reply. 'And I've got a
diggings somewhere off Piccadilly.'

'Where's that?' I inquired.

'Where's what?' said he. 'O, Piccadilly! It's in London.'

'Have you a large garden?' I asked; 'and how many pigs have you got?'

'I've no garden at all,' he replied sadly, and they don't allow me to
keep pigs, though I'd like to, awfully. It's very hard.'

'But what do you do all day, then,' I cried, 'and where do you go and
play, without any garden, or pigs, or things?'

'When I want to play,' he said gravely, 'I have to go and play in the
street; but it's poor fun, I grant you. There's a goat, though, not far
off, and sometimes I talk to him when I'm feeling lonely; but he's very
proud.'

'Goats _are_ proud,' I admitted. 'There's one lives near here, and if
you say anything to him at all, he hits you in the wind with his head.
You know what it feels like when a fellow hits you in the wind?'

'I do, well,' he replied, in a tone of proper melancholy, and painted
on.

'And have you been