When you notice that on one of his hands the second finger is twined over the first, of the Rightful-heir in presence of the Wrongful-heir, you may know that the first is guarding himself against the Evil Eye supposed to belong to the second.
And—the list could be extended to an indefinite length—you will learn more, by going to the Capranica.
At the Metastasio Theatre there was a French vaudeville company, passably good, attended by a French audience, the majority officers and soldiers. Here were presented such attractive plays as La Femme qui Mord, or 'The Woman who Bites;' Sullivan, the hero of which gets bien gris, very gray, that is, blue, that is, very tipsy, and at the close, astonishes the audience with the moral: To get tight is human! Dalilah, etc., etc. The French are not very well beloved by the Romans pure and simple; it is not astonishing, therefore, that their language should be laughed at. One morning Rome woke up to find placards all over the city, headed:
FRENCH
TAUGHT IN THIRTY-SIX LESSONS!
Apply to Monsieur So-and-so.
A few days afterward appeared a fearful wood-cut, the head of a jackass, with his tongue hanging down several inches, and under it, these words, in Italian: 'The only tongue yet learnt in less than thirty-six lessons!'
Caper, seated one night in the parquette of the Metastasio, had at his side a French infantry soldier. In conversation he asked him:
'How long have you been in Rome?'
'Three years, Mossu.'