The Crowd, Which Thickened Most In The Piazza Di Venezia, Had Grown More
And More Carnivalesque In Attire And Behavior.
We had been obliged to
avoid the more densely peopled streets because, as our international
explained, if the car had slowed at any point the revellers would have
joined our excursion of their own initiative and accompanied us to the
end in overwhelming numbers.
They wellnigh blocked the entrance of the
Corso when we got back to it, and the cafe where we had agreed to have
tea was so packed that our gay escapade began to look rather gloomy in
the retrospect. But suddenly a table was vacated; a waiter was caught,
in the vain attempt to ignore us, and given such a comprehensive order
that we could see respect kindling in his eyes, and before we could
reasonably have hoped it he spread before us tea and bread and butter
and tarts and little cakes, while scores of hungry spectators stood
round and flatteringly envied us. In this happy climax our adventure
showed as a royal progress throughout. We counted up the wonders of our
three hours' course in an absolutely novel light; and we said that
touring Rome was a thing not only not to be despised, but to be forever
proud of.
For myself, I decided that if I were some poor hurried fellow-countryman
of mine, doing Europe in a month and obliged to scamp Rome with a couple
of days, I would not fail to spend two of them in what I must always
think of as a triumphal chariot.
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