They found a homely landlady with neat rooms in the via Babuino, and having bargained for them for twelve scudi a month, their labors were over.

MACCARONICAL.

There was, when Caper first came to Rome, an eating-house, nearly opposite the fountain Trevi, called the Gabioni.  It was underground,—­in fact, a series of cellars, popularly conjectured to have been part of the catacombs.  In one of these cellars, resembling with its arched roof a tunnel, the ceiling so low that you could touch the apex of the round arch with your hand, every afternoon in autumn and winter, between the hours of five and six, there assembled, by mutual consent, eight or ten artists.  The table at which they sat would hold no more, and they did not want it to.  Two waiters attended them, Giovanni for food, Santi for wine and cigars.  The long-stemmed Roman lamps of burnished brass, the bowl that held the oil and wicks resembling the united prows of four vessels, shedding their light on the white cloth and white walls, made the old place cheerful.  The white and red wine in the thin glass flasks gleamed brightly, and the food was well cooked and wholesome.  Here in early winter came the sellers of ‘sweet olives,’ as they called them, and for two or three cents (baiocchi) you could buy a plateful.  These olives were green, and, having been soaked in lime-water, the bitter taste was taken from them, and they had the flavor of almonds.

But the maccaroni was the great dish in the Gabioni; a four-cent plate of it would take the sharp edge from a fierce appetite, assisted as it was by a large one-cent roll of bread.  There was the white pipe-stem and the dark ribbon (fettucia) species; and it was cooked with sauce (al sugo), with cheese, Neapolitan, Roman and Milan fashion, and—­otherways.  Wild boar steaks came in winter, and were cheap.  Veal never being sold in Rome until the calf is a two-year-old heifer, was no longer veal, but tender beef, and was eatable.  Sardines fried in oil and batter were good.  Game was plenty, and very reasonable in price, except venison, which was scarce.  The average cost of a substantial dinner was from thirty to forty baiocchi, and said Rocjean, ’I can live like a prince—­like the Prince B——­, who dines here occasionally—­for half that sum.’

The first day Caper dined in the Gabioni, what with a dog-fight under the table, cats jumping upon the table, a distressed marchioness (fact) begging him for a small sum, a beautiful girl from the Trastevere, shining like a patent-leather boot, with gold ear-rings, and brooch, and necklace, and coral beads, who sat at another table with a French soldier—­these and those other little piquante things, that the traveler learns to smile at and endure, worried him.  But the dinner was good, his companions at table were companionable, and as he finished an extra foglietta (pint) of wine, price eight cents, with Rocjean, he concluded to give it another trial.  He kept at giving it trials until the old Gabioni was closed, and from it arose the Four Nations or Quattre Nazione in Turkey Cock Alley (viccolo Gallmaccio), which, as any one knows, is near Two Murderers’ Street. (Via Due Macelli)