knew we were
heathen that never knew there was a God. Sure thing, I never supposed
there were so many people in the world that worshiped their Maker, as
there are here, and I don't wonder that all over the world good people
look to Rome for the light. Dad keeps telling me that when we get home
we will set an example that will make people pay attention, but he says
he does not want to join the church until he has seen all the sights,
and then he will swear off for good.

He said to me yesterday: "Now, Hennery, I have been to all the pious
places with you, the pope's residence, the catacombs and St. Peter's,
where they preach from 40 different places and make you feel like giving
up your sins, and I have looked at carvings and decorations and marble
and jewels and seen the folly of my ways of life, and I am ripe for a
change, but before I give up the world and all of its wickedness, I want
blood. I want to go to the other extreme, and see the wild beasts at the
Coliseum tear human beings limb from limb, and drink their blood, and
see gladiators gladiate, and chop down their antagonists, and put one
foot on their prostrate necks, like they do in the theaters, and then I
am ready to leave this town and be good."

Well, sir, I have been in lots of tight places before, but this one beat
the band. Here was my dad, who did not know that the Roman, gladiator
business had been off the boards for over 2,000 years, that the eating
of human prisoners by wild beasts in the presence of the Roman populace
was played out, and that the Coliseum was a ruin and did not exist as
a place of amusement. He thought everything that he had read about the
horrors of a Roman holiday was running to-day, as a side show, and he
wanted to see it, and I had encouraged him in his ideas, because he was
nervous, and I didn't want to undeceive him. He had come to Rome to
see things he couldn't find at home, and it was up to me to deliver the
goods.

Gee, but it made me sweat, 'cause I knew if dad did not get a show for
his money he would lay it up against me, so I told him we would go to
the Coliseum that night and see the hungry lions and tigers eat some of
the leading citizens, just as they did when Caesar run the show. Then I
found an American from Chicago at the hotel, who sells soap in Rome, and
told him what dad expected of me in the way of amusement, and he said
the only way was to take dad out to the Coliseum, and in the dark roll
a barrel of br