He brought us before the beautiful bust—­for it was beautiful—­and sprang back and struck an attitude: 

“Ah, look, genteelmen!—­beautiful, grand,—­bust Christopher Colombo! —­beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal!”

The doctor put up his eye-glass—­procured for such occasions: 

“Ah—­what did you say this gentleman’s name was?”

“Christopher Colombo!—­ze great Christopher Colombo!”

“Christopher Colombo—­the great Christopher Colombo.  Well, what did he do?”

“Discover America!—­discover America, Oh, ze devil!”

“Discover America.  No—­that statement will hardly wash.  We are just from America ourselves.  We heard nothing about it.  Christopher Colombo —­pleasant name—­is—­is he dead?”

“Oh, corpo di Baccho!—­three hundred year!”

“What did he die of?”

“I do not know!—­I can not tell.”

“Small-pox, think?”

“I do not know, genteelmen!—­I do not know what he die of!”

“Measles, likely?”

“May be—­may be—­I do not know—­I think he die of somethings.”

“Parents living?”

“Im-poseeeble!”

“Ah—­which is the bust and which is the pedestal?”

“Santa Maria!—­zis ze bust!—­zis ze pedestal!”

“Ah, I see, I see—­happy combination—­very happy combination, indeed.  Is—­is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust?”

That joke was lost on the foreigner—­guides can not master the subtleties of the American joke.

We have made it interesting for this Roman guide.  Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vatican, again, that wonderful world of curiosities.  We came very near expressing interest, sometimes—­even admiration—­it was very hard to keep from it.  We succeeded though.  Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums.  The guide was bewildered —­non-plussed.  He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in any thing.  He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last—­a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps.  He took us there.  He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him: 

“See, genteelmen!—­Mummy!  Mummy!”

The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever.

“Ah,—­Ferguson—­what did I understand you to say the gentleman’s name was?”

“Name?—­he got no name!—­Mummy!—­’Gyptian mummy!”

“Yes, yes.  Born here?”

“No!  ’Gyptian mummy!”

“Ah, just so.  Frenchman, I presume?”

“No!—­not Frenchman, not Roman!—­born in Egypta!”

“Born in Egypta.  Never heard of Egypta before.  Foreign locality, likely.  Mummy—­mummy.  How calm he is—­how self-possessed.  Is, ah—­is he dead?”

“Oh, sacre bleu, been dead three thousan’ year!”