[Illustration: '"_You haven't been to Rome, have you?_"']
After another five minutes or so had passed, he remarked, without looking my way: 'Fine afternoon we're having: going far to-day?'
'No, I'm not going any farther than this,' I replied; 'I _was_ thinking of going on to Rome: but I've put it off.'
'Pleasant place, Rome,' he murmured: 'you'll like it.' It was some minutes later that he added: 'But I wouldn't go just now, if I were you: too jolly hot.'
'_You_ haven't been to Rome, have you?' I inquired.
'Rather,' he replied briefly: 'I live there.'
This was too much, and my jaw dropped as I struggled to grasp the fact that I was sitting there talking to a fellow who lived in Rome. Speech was out of the question: besides I had other things to do. Ten solid minutes had I already spent in an examination of him as a mere stranger and artist; and now the whole thing had to be done over again, from the changed point of view. So I began afresh, at the crown of his soft hat, and worked down to his solid British shoes, this time investing everything with the new Roman halo; and at last I managed to get out: 'But you don't really live there, do you?' never doubting the fact, but wanting to hear it repeated.
'Well,' he said, good-naturedly overlooking the slight rudeness of my query, 'I live there as much as I live anywhere. About half the year sometimes. I've got a sort of a shanty there. You must come and see it some day.'
'But do you live anywhere else as well?' I went on, feeling the forbidden tide of questions surging up within me.
'O yes, all over the place,' was his vague reply. 'And I've got a diggings somewhere off Piccadilly.'
'Where's what?' said he. 'O, Piccadilly! It's in London.'
'Have you a large garden?' I asked; 'and how many pigs have you got?'
'I've no garden at all,' he replied sadly, and they don't allow me to keep pigs, though I'd like to, awfully. It's very hard.'
'But what do you do all day, then,' I cried, 'and where do you go and play, without any garden, or pigs, or things?'
'When I want to play,' he said gravely, 'I have to go and play in the street; but it's poor fun, I grant you. There's a goat, though, not far off, and sometimes I talk to him when I'm feeling lonely; but he's very proud.'