I caught, when my back was half turned, winking.
I had no time for verification, no time for
selection, no time for anything, for I had no time
to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of
cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I
tied up in my pocket-handkerchief with my last
night's slice), some brandy from a stone bottle
(which I decanted into a glass bottle l had secretly
used for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-
liquorice-water, up in my room : diluting the
stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen
cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and a
beautiful round compact pork pie. I was
nearly going away without the pie, but I was
tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it
was that was put away so carefully in a covered
earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was
the pie, and I took it, in the hope that it was
not intended for early use, and would not be
missed for some time.

There was a door in the kitchen, communicating
with the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that
door, and got a file from among Joe's tools.
Then, I put the fastenings as I had found them,
opened the door at which I had entered when I
ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the
misty marshes.

A ROMAN COOK'S ORACLE.

THE popular belief that we are indebted to
Heaven for meats, and that a great Nameless
kindly supplies persons to cook those meats, is
quite astray in an Eternal City. The direct
contrary rather obtains: Nameless taking on him the
purveyor's office; cooks betraying their diviner
origin. Friend Merrynote, who is a settler and
social backwoodsman in the Eternal City, and has
a palatial log-house all to himself in the Corso,
bursts upon me one morning, and sings tumultuously,
"Let us dine!" He is the most jocund of
Adam's children, light and cheerful as a schoolboy,
and the best company in the world (I would
walk with him to the city whose walls fell down
before the trumpets and not feel the road heavy);
so, though his proposition had not an air of startling
novelty, I feel there is more beneath it than
meets the eye. I see that here is a rock on
which I may lean in perfect security; and simply
murmur out " When? Where? How?"

"To-day! At the sign of the Little Bottles!
sumptuously!" he answers, without a syllable
too much, or one superfluous word.

I could understand at the sign of the Owl,
where the clergy gather; at the sign of the
Hanglurtaire, where the Saxons cluster noisily;
at the United States, which the gentlemen and
ladies of that nation affect; or at The British
Islands, where nobility pillows its head; but at
the sign of the Little Bottles! It sounds
tavernous — perhaps cavernous.

The voice of my friend is as a cheerful horn.
He is the soul of an expedition, and snaps out
details with a raciness that positively inspires.
I see my way but indistinctly, yet feel myself
working up into a noble enthusiasm. " You
have sojourned weeks," he chants, with alacrity,
" in this Eternal City, and yet are, so to speak,
fasting. You have sat down every day to the
Eternal dinners, and been filled with the Eternal
meats and other preparations, and have not yet
once dined. You shall dine to-day for the first
time. Have faith ; put your trust in me," he
adds, ingeniously adapting the well-known mot
d'ordre to the situation, " and keep your palate
dry!"

The shades of night were falling fast, as in the
case of the ill-fated young Alpine climber who
carried a banner with a strange device, when we
went forth to dine. A strong party — half a
dozen in number. The night was dark, and lamp
accommodation scanty. Merrynote, high priest
of Apicius, strides on in front. Invisible angels
—Soyer, Carême, Francatelli, and Gogue—walk
beside us and guide us tenderly. We are about
ascending a gastronomic monarch of mountains,
with his robe of snow, &c., and our Balmât and
our Tairraz went on in front, cheering us.

He sings for us the whole way — he keeps up
the hearts of the lagging—he takes us over
dangerous crevasses, where a single slip at either
side would have precipitated us into yawning
pools of mud. The useful precaution of tying
the travellers together with ropes was utterly
neglected; no one had thought of bringing
axes; but there were instead, plenty of
umbrellas. He takes us round by strange
unfrequented by-ways, bids us look up at a caked
and crusted mass of tumbling buildings, and old
grey rockeries, where it is hard to discern nicely
which is rock and which building, and tells us
that this is the famous old Tarpeian cliff. Then
we cross the poor sort of Hungerford suspension
bridge, which has proved sadly unremunerative
to the spirited proprietor, returning to him
but a very light bag of halfpennies in the year.
Time is not money with Roman commonalty; so
why not just as well go round by the old bridge,
half a mile or so below, and thus save their
halfpenny? Time with us is money, dinner, everything;
and our guide breaks it to us gently that
our host of the Little Bottles is a man of
eccentric manners, who would not scruple to set
the ordered banquet before guests ready to hand
and of more punctual habits.

What! this striking into a net of entangled
lanes and alleys, into these foul narrow streets,
twisting and doubling back, and shooting wildly,
now to the right, now to the left, without a
single light — this plunging, in fact, into the
noisome atmosphere of the Ghetto, or Old
Jewry of Rome — is this a necessary probation
before the expected banquet? " Courage!"
still chants our Balmât through the darkness.
He is waving his banner with the strange
device, though the strange device is invisible.
Just round this corner, just down this one more
alley (with handkerchief pressed firmly to the
nose), and the sign of the Little Bottles is
waving and creaking noisily over our heads.

Now it breaks upon me. As in the City proper
of the Great City, are certain dens, dark, dingy,
unfragrant, but where you may see your chop
or steak simmering and hissing afar off at a