He was in citizen's dress, and looked like a stout, brown, soldierly man, not so ugly as the pictures of him, but not an Apollo by any means.
Hating ceremony and splendour, he would not have the fine apartments prepared for him, but chose a plain room, saying, 'Keep the finery for my son, if you like; I prefer this.'
He drove through the Ghetto, and all the desolated parts of the city, to see with his own eyes the ruin made; and then desired the city fathers to give to the poor the money they had set apart to make a splendid welcome for him.
He only spent one day, and returned to Florence at night. All Rome was at the station to see him off: ladies with carriages full of flowers, troops of soldiers, and throngs of poor people blessing him like a saint; for this kingly sympathy of his had won all hearts.
'When he does make his grand entry, we will decorate our balcony, and have our six windows packed with loyal Yankees who will hurrah their best for "the honest man," as they call Victor Emmanuel—and that is high praise for a king.'
So said the three, and while waiting for the event (which did not occur in their day, however,) they indulged in all the pastimes modern Rome afforded. They shivered through endless galleries, getting 'cricks' in their necks staring at frescoes, and injuring their optic nerves poring over pictures so old that often nothing was visible but a mahogany-coloured leg, an oily face, or the dim outline of a green saint in a whirlwind of pink angels.
They grubbed in catacombs and came up mouldy. They picnicked in the tomb of Cæcelia Metella, flirted in the palace of the Cæsars—not in the classical manner, however,—got cold by moonlight in the Colosseum, and went sketching in the Baths of Caracalla, which last amusement generally ended in the gentlemen and ladies drawing each other, and returning delighted with the study of art in 'dear Rome.'
They went to fancy parties, where artists got themselves up like their own statues and pictures, and set mediæval fashions which it was a pity the rest of the world did not follow. They drank much social tea with titled beings, as thick as blackberries, and, better still, men and women who had earned noble names for themselves with pencil, pen, or chisel. They paid visits in palaces where the horses lived in the basement, rich foreigners on the first floor, artists next, and princes in the attic.
They went to the hunt, and saw scarlet coats, fine horses, bad riding, many hounds, and no foxes.
As a change they got up game parties à la Little Athens in their own small salon, introduced the Potatoe Pantomime, had charades, and enacted the immortal Jarley's waxworks on one of the Seven Hills.