o, and
pocket-handkerchiefs, ran errands for gentlemen, and lent money in a
small way. All the great company in Rome thronged to his
saloons--Princes, Dukes, Ambassadors, artists, fiddlers, monsignori,
young bears with their leaders--every rank and condition of man. His
halls blazed with light and magnificence; were resplendent with gilt
frames (containing pictures), and dubious antiques; and the enormous
gilt crown and arms of the princely owner, a gold mushroom on a crimson
field (the colour of the pocket-handkerchiefs which he sold), and the
silver fountain of the Pompili family shone all over the roof, doors,
and panels of the house, and over the grand velvet baldaquins prepared
to receive Popes and Emperors.

So Becky, who had arrived in the diligence from Florence, and was
lodged at an inn in a very modest way, got a card for Prince Polonia's
entertainment, and her maid dressed her with unusual care, and she went
to this fine ball leaning on the arm of Major Loder, with whom she
happened to be travelling at the time--(the same man who shot Prince
Ravoli at Naples the next year, and was caned by Sir John Buckskin for
carrying four kings in his hat besides those which he used in playing
at ecarte )--and this pair went into the rooms together, and Becky saw
a number of old faces which she remembered in happier days, when she
was not innocent, but not found out. Major Loder knew a great number of
foreigners, keen-looking whiskered men with dirty striped ribbons in
their buttonholes, and a very small display of linen; but his own
countrymen, it might be remarked, eschewed the Major. Becky, too, knew
some ladies here and there--French widows, dubious Italian countesses,
whose husbands had treated them ill--faugh--what shall we say, we who
have moved among some of the finest company of Vanity Fair, of this
refuse and sediment of rascals? If we play, let it be with clean cards,
and not with this dirty pack. But every man who has formed one of the
innumerable army of travellers has seen these marauding irregulars
hanging on, like Nym and Pistol, to the main force, wearing the king's
colours and boasting of his commission, but pillaging for themselves,
and occasionally gibbeted by the roadside.

Well, she was hanging on the arm of Major Loder, and they went through
the rooms together, and drank a great quantity of champagne at the
buffet, where the people, and especially the Major's irregular corps,
struggled furiously