'Well, she is a pretty hard innimy; and they do talk here in Rome if you don't toe the mark. But ree-ly, you mustn't go off mad (smiling). You must call up with Rocjan and see us; and I ree-ly hope that when your uncle comes you will bring him to my studiyo. I am sure my Enterprise will soot him.'
So Chapin saw them out of his studio. Not until Caper found himself seated on a stone bench under the ilexes of the Villa Borghese, watching the sunbeams darting on the little lizards, and seeing far off the Albanian Mountains, snowcapped against the blue sky—not until then did he breathe freely.
'Rocjean,' said he; 'that stone-cutter down there—that Chapin—'
'Chameau! roared Rocjean. 'He and his kind are doing for art what the Jews did for prize-fighting—they ruin it. They make art the laughing-stock of all refined and educated people. Art applied solely to sculpture and painting is dead; it will not rise again in these our times. But art, the fairy-fingered beautifier of all that surrounds our homes and daily walks, save paintings and statuary, never breathed so fully, clearly, nobly as now, and her pathway amid the lowly and homely things around us is shedding beauty wherever it goes. The rough-handed artisan who, slowly dreaming of the beautiful, at last turns out a stone that will beautify and adorn a room, instead of rendering it hideous, has done for this practical generation what he of an earlier theoretical age did for his cotemporaries when he carved the imperial Venus of Milos. Enough; this is the sermon not preached from stones.'
A Ball At The Costa Palace
One sunlight morning in February, while hard at work in his studio, Caper was agreeably surprised by the entrance of an elderly uncle of his, Mr. Bill Browne, of St. Louis, a gentleman of the rosy, stout, hearty school of old bachelors, who, having made a large fortune by keeping a Western country store, prudently retired from business, and finding it dull work doing nothing, wisely determined to enjoy himself with a tour over the Continent, 'or any other place he might conclude to visit.'
'I say, Jim, did you expect to see me here?' was his first greeting.
'Why, Uncle Bill! Well, you are the last man I ever thought would turn up. They didn't write me a word of your coming over,' answered Caper.
'Mistake; they wrote you all about it; and if you'll drop round at the post-office, you'll find letters there telling you the particulars. Fact is, I am ahead of the mail. Coming over in the steamer, met a man named Orville; told me he knew you, that he was coming straight through to Rome, and offered to pilot me. So I gave up Paris and all that, and came smack through, eighteen days from New York. But I'm dry. Got a match? Here, try one of these cigars.'