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 that?’ I inquired.