“I do not know, genteelmen!—I do not know what he die of!”
“Measles, likely?”
“Maybe—maybe—I do not know—I think he die of somethings.”
“Parents living?”
“Im-posseeble!”
“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 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, sometimes—even admiration—it was very hard to keep from it. 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 exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved 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: