Then the doctor laid the document down and said: "Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that." "But zis is ze great Christo

ever saw.

"I don't care who it is! It's the worst writing I Now you mustn't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real merit, trot them out! - and if you haven't, drive on!"

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one more venture. He had something which he thought would overcome us. He said:

"Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, oh, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo! - splendid, grand, magnificent!"

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 eyeglass-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!" 66 What did he die of?"

"I do not know! I cannot 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."

"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 cannot 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, sometimeseven admiration

it was very hard to keep from it.

--

exhausted all his

failure; we never He had reserved

We succeeded though. Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered — nonplussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and ingenuity on us, but it was a showed any interest in anything. 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 eyeglass 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, sacré bleu, been dead three thousan' year!" The doctor turned on him savagely:

"Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct