d to transfer to canvas. His
portrait has been painted by more than one artist.

Caper, sitting in the Omnibus one evening with Rocjean, was accosted by
a very seedy-looking man, with a very peculiar expression of face,
wherein an awful struggle of humor to crowd down pinching poverty
gleamed brightly. He offered for sale an odd volume of one of the early
fathers of the Church. Its probable value was a dime, whereas he wanted
two dollars for it.

'Why do you ask such a price?' asked Rocjean, 'you never can expect to
sell it for a twentieth part of that.'

'The moral of which,' said the seedy man, no longer containing the
struggling humor, but letting it out with a hearty laugh; 'the moral of
which is--give me half a baioccho!'

Ever after that, Caper never saw the man, who henceforth went by the
name of _La Morale e un Mezzo Baioccho_! without pointing the moral with
a copper coin. Not content with this, he once took him round to the
_Lepre_ restaurant, and ordered a right good supper for him. Several
other artists were with him, and all declared that no one could do
better justice to food and wine. After he had eaten all he could hold,
and drank a little more than he could carry, he arose from table, having
during the entire meal sensibly kept silence, and wiping his mouth on
his coat-sleeve, spoke:

'The moral this evening, signori, I shall carry home in my stomach.'

As he was going out of the restaurant, one of the artists asked him why
he left two rolls of bread on the table; saying they were paid for, and
belonged to him.

'I left them,' said he, 'out of regard for the correct usages of
society; but, having shown this, I return to pocket them.'

This he did at once, and Caper stood astonished at the seedy-beggar's
phraseology.

In addition to these characters, wandering musicians find their way into
the cafe, jugglers, peddlers of Roman mosaics and jewelry, plaster-casts
and sponges, perfumery and paint-brushes. Or a peripatetic shoemaker,
with one pair of shoes, which he recklessly offers for sale to giant or
dwarf. One morning he found a purchaser--a French artist--who put them
on, and threw away his old shoes. Fatal mistake. Two hours afterward,
the buyer was back in the Greco, with both big toes sticking out of the
ends of his new shoes, looking for that _cochon_ of a shoemaker.

To those who read men like books, the Greco offers a valuable
circulating library. The advantage, too, of these artistic