'Accidente, Signore, nobody around here has been able to sleep a wink all night long. Santa Maria! such yells have come from your studio, such groans, such horrible noises, as if all the devils had broken loose. We are going to the police; we are going to the gendarmeria; we are going to—'
'Go there—and be hanged!' shouted Caper, breaking through the crowd, and running up-stairs two steps at a time, he nearly walked into the lap of a tall female model, named Giacinta, dressed in Ciociara costume, who was calmly seated on the stair-case, glaring at another female model, named Nina, who stood leaning against the door of his studio.
'Signor Giacomo, good morning!' said Giacinta, 'didn't you tell me to be here at nine o'clock?'
'To be sure I did,' replied he.
'Then,' continued she, 'what is that person there taking the bread out of my mouth for? Cospetto!'
'Iddio giusto!' cried Nina, 'hear her; she calls me, ME, a person! I who have a watch and chain, and wear a hooped petticoat! I take the bread out of her mouth. I a person! I'm a lady, per Bacco!'
'Tace!' said Rocjean to Nina, 'or the Signore Giacomo will send you flying. What do you want, Nina?'
'I only wanted to see if the Signore intended to paint the Lady Godeeva, that he told me about the other day.'
'Wait till I open the studio-door, and get out of this noise. Those old women down below, and you young ones up here, are howling like a lot of hyenas. Here, come in!' ... As Caper said this, he unlocked the studio-door and threw it open; the two models were close at his elbows, while Rocjean drew to one side to let them pass in.
In the next minute, Caper, the two models, a he-goat, a dirty little donkey, and a yelping dog, were rolling head over heels down-stairs, one confused mass of petticoats and animals.