“There is a measure of truth in this,” admitted Alexander the Sixth, “and the spirit of this age is a very poor spirit.  It was my felicity to be a Pope of the Renaissance.  Blest dispensation! when men’s view of life was large and liberal; when the fair humanities flourished; when the earth yielded up her hoards of chiselled marble and breathing bronze, and new-found agate urns as fresh as day; when painters and sculptors vied with antiquity, and poets and historians followed in their path; when every benign deity was worshipped save Diana and Vesta; when the arts of courtship and cosmetics were expounded by archbishops; when the beauteous Imperia was of more account than the eleven thousand virgins; when obnoxious persons glided imperceptibly from the world; and no one marvelled if he met the Pope arm in arm with the Devil.  How miserable, in comparison, is the present sapless age, with its prudery and its pedantry, and its periwigs and its painted coaches, and its urban Arcadias and the florid impotence and ostentatious inanity of what it calls its art!  Pope Alexander!  I see in the spirit the sepulchre destined for you, and I swear to you that my soul shivers in my ratskins!  Come, now!  I do not expect you to emulate the Popes of my time, but show that your virtues are your own, and your faults those of your epoch.  Pluck up a spirit!  Take bulls by the horns!  Look facts in the face!  Think upon the images of Brutus and Cassius!  Recognise that you cannot get rid of me, and that the only safe course is to rehabilitate me.  I am not a candidate for canonisation just now; but repair past neglect and appease my injured shade in the way you wot of.  If this is done, I pledge my word that every rat shall forthwith evacuate Rome.  Is it a bargain?  I see it is; you are one of the good old sort, though fallen on evil days.”

Renaissance or Rats, Alexander the Eighth yielded.

“I promise,” he declared.

“Your hand upon it!”

Subduing his repugnance and apprehension by a strong effort, Alexander laid his hand within the spectre’s clammy paw.  An icy thrill ran through his veins, and he sank back senseless into his chair.

III

When the Pope recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, with slight symptoms of fever.  His first care was to summon Cardinal Barbadico, and confer with him respecting the surprising adventures which had recently befallen them.  To his amazement, the Cardinal’s mind seemed an entire blank on the subject.  He admitted having made his customary report to his Holiness the preceding night, but knew nothing of any supernatural ratcatcher, and nothing of any midnight rendezvous at the Appartamento Borgia.  Investigation seemed to justify his nescience; no vestige of the man of rats or of his shop could be discovered; and the Borgian apartments, opened and carefully searched through, revealed no trace of having been visited