household, until, arrived in the fifth chamber, close by the, to him, invisible picture of the Resurrection, he sank exhausted into a spacious chair that seemed placed for his reception, and for a moment closed his eyes.  Opening them immediately afterwards, he saw with relief that the phantoms had vanished, and that he confronted what at least seemed a fellow-mortal, in the ancient ratcatcher, habited precisely as Cardinal Barbadico had described, yet, for all his mean apparel, wearing the air of one wont to confer with the potentates of the earth on other subjects than the extermination of rats.

“This is noble of your Holiness—­really,” he said, bowing with mock reverence.  “A second Leo the Great!”

“I tell you what, my man,” responded Alexander, feeling it very necessary to assert his dignity while any of it remained, “you are not to imagine that, because I have humoured you so far as to grant you an audience at an unusual place and time, I am going to stand any amount of your nonsense and impertinence.  You can catch our rats, can you?  Catch them then, and you need not fear that we shall treat you like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.  You have committed sundry rascalities, no doubt?  A pardon shall be made out for you.  You want a patent or a privilege for your ratsbane?  You shall have it.  So to work, in the name of St. Muscipulus! and you may keep the tails and skins.”

“Alexander,” said the ratcatcher composedly, “I would not commend or dispraise you unduly, but this I may say, that of all the Popes I have known you are the most exuberant in hypocrisy and the most deficient in penetration.  The most hypocritical, because you well know, and know that I know that you know, that you are not conversing with an ordinary ratcatcher:  had you deemed me such, you would never have condescended to meet me at this hour and place.  The least penetrating, because you apparently have not yet discovered to whom you are speaking.  Do you really mean to say that you do not know me?”

“I believe I have seen your face before,” said Alexander, “and all the more likely as I was inspector of prisons when I was Cardinal.”

“Then look yonder,” enjoined the ratcatcher, as he pointed to the frescoed wall, at the same time vehemently snapping his fingers.  Phosphoric sparks hissed and crackled forth, and coalesced into a blue lambent flame, which concentrated itself upon a depicted figure, whose precise attitude the ratcatcher assumed as he dropped upon his knees.  The Pope shrieked with amazement, for, although the splendid Pontifical vestments had become ragged fur, in every other respect the kneeling figure was the counterpart of the painted one, and the painted one was Pinturicchio’s portrait of Pope Alexander the Sixth kneeling as a witness of the Resurrection.

Alexander the Eighth would fain have imitated his predecessor’s attitude, but terror bound him to his chair, and the adjuration of his patron St. Mark which struggled towards his lips never arrived there.  The book of exorcisms fell from his paralysed hand, and the vial of holy water lay in shivers upon the floor.  Ere he could collect himself, the dead Pope had seated himself beside the Pope with one foot in the grave, and, fondling a ferret-skin, proceeded to enter into conversation.