Carabinieri were lounging about the gate, and carriages were driving to the Pincian; but we rode on and up the street on the right of the piazza. When we had gone a short distance we asked a man at a corner our way to the Piazza di Spagna. We should have taken the street to our left, he said, but now we could reach it by crossing the Corso diagonally. As we did so we heard a loud sst, sst behind us, and we saw a gendarme running up the street; but we went on. When we wheeled into the Piazza di Spagna, however, a second, almost breathless, ran out in front of us, and cried, Aspetti! ("Wait!") But still we rode. Aspetti! he cried again, and half drew his sword. In a minute we were surrounded. Models came flying from the Spanish steps; an old countryman carrying a fish affectionately under his arm, bootblacks, clerks from the near shops, young Roman swells,—all these and many more gathered about us.
"Aspetti!" the gendarme still cried.
"Perchè?" we asked.
And then his fellow-officer, whom we had seen on the Corso, came up. "Get down!" he said, in fierce tones of command.
"Perchè?" we asked again.
"Per Christo!" was his only answer.
The crowd laughed with glee. Hackmen shouted their applause. It was ignominious, perhaps, but the wisest policy, to get down and walk to our hotel.