It is not easy to define exactly what a Roman means by the word “serious.”  In some measure it is the opposite of gay, and especially of what is young and unsettled.  The German use of the word Philistine expresses it very nearly.  A certain sober, straitlaced way of looking at life, which was considered to represent morality in Rome fifty years ago; a kind of melancholy superiority over all sorts of amusements, joined with a considerable asceticism and the most rigid economy in the household—­that is what was meant by the word “serious.”  To-day its signification has been slightly modified, but a serious man—­un uomo serio—­still represents to the middle-class father the ideal of the correct son-in-law.

“Eh, without prudence!” exclaimed Carnesecchi, elliptically, as though to ask where he himself would have been had he not possessed prudence in abundance.

“Exactly,” answered Marzio, biting off the end of a common cigar and fixing his eyes on the lawyer’s thin, keen face.  “Precisely.  I think—­of course I do not know—­but I think that you are a serious man.  But then, I may be mistaken.”

“Well, it is human to err, Sor Marzio.  But then, I am no longer of that age—­what shall I say?  Everybody knows I am serious.  Do I lead the life of the cafe?  Do I wear out my shoes in Piazza Colonna?  Capers!  I am a serious man.”

“Yes,” answered Marzio, though with some hesitation, as though he were prepared to argue even this point with the sallow-faced lawyer.  He struck a match on the gaudy little paper box he carried and began to smoke thoughtfully.  “Let us make a couple of steps,” he said at last.

Both men moved slowly on for a few seconds, and then stopped again.  In Italy “a couple of steps” is taken literally.

“Let us see,” said Carnesecchi.  “Let us look at things as they are.  In these days there are many excellent opportunities for investing money.”

“Hum!” grunted Marzio, pulling a long face and looking up under his eyebrows.  “I know that is your opinion, Sor Gasparo.  I am sorry that you should put so much faith in the stability of things.  So you, too, have got the malady of speculation.  I suppose you are thinking of building a Palazzo Carnesecchi out at Sant’ Agnese in eight floors and thirty-two apartments.”

“Yes, I am mad,” answered the lawyer ironically.

“Who knows?” returned the other.  “I tell you they are building a Pompeii in those new quarters.  When you and I are old men, crazy Englishmen will pay two francs to be allowed to wander about the ruins.”

“It may be.  I am not thinking of building.  In tine first place I have not the soldi.”

“And if you had?” inquired Marzio.

“What nonsense!  Besides, no one has.  It is all done on credit, and the devil take the hindmost.  But if I really had a million—­eh!  I know what I would do.”

“Let us hear.  I also know what I would do.  Besta!  What is the use of building castles in the air?”