This was too much, and my jaw dropped as I struggled to grasp the fact that I was sitting there talking to a fellow who lived in Rome. Speech was out of the question: besides, I had other things to do. Ten solid minutes had I already spent in an examination of him as a mere stranger and artist; and now the whole thing had to be done over again, from the changed point of view. So I began afresh, at the crown of his soft hat, and worked down to his solid British shoes, this time investing everything with the new Roman halo; and at last I managed to get out: "But you don't really live there, do you?" never doubting the fact, but wanting to hear it repeated.
"Well," he said, good-naturedly overlooking the slight rudeness of my query, "I live there as much as l live anywhere,--about half the year sometimes. I've got a sort of a shanty there.
You must come and see it some day."
"But do you live anywhere else as well?" I went on, feeling the forbidden tide of questions surging up within me.
"O yes, all over the place," was his vague reply. "And I've got a diggings somewhere off Piccadilly."
"Where's that?" I inquired.
"Where's what?" said he. "Oh, Piccadilly! It's in London."
"Have you a large garden?" I asked; "and how many pigs have you got?"
"I've no garden at all," he replied, sadly, "and they don't allow me to keep pigs, though I'd like to, awfully. It's very hard."
"But what do you do all day, then," I cried, "and where do you go and play, without any garden, or pigs, or things?"
"When I want to play," he said, gravely, "I have to go and play in the street; but it's poor fun, I grant you. There's a goat, though, not far off, and sometimes I talk to him when I'm feeling lonely; but he's very proud."
"Goats ARE proud," I admitted. "There's one lives near here, and if you say anything to him at all, he hits you in the wind with his head. You know what it feels like when a fellow hits you in the wind?"
"I do, well," he replied, in a tone of proper melancholy, and painted on.
"And have you been to any other places," I began again, presently, "besides Rome and Piccy-what's-his-name?"
"Heaps," he said. "I'm a sort of Ulysses--seen men and cities, you know. In fact, about the only place I never got to was the Fortunate Island."
I began to like this man. He answered your questions briefly and to the point, and never tried to be funny. I felt I could be confidential with him.
"Wouldn't you like," I inquired, "to find a city without any people in it at all?"
He looked puzzled. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said he.
"I mean," I went on eagerly, "a city where you walk in at the gates, and the shops are all full of beautiful things, and the houses furnished as grand as can be, and there isn't anybody there whatever! And you go into the shops, and take anything you want--chocolates and magic lanterns and injirubber balls--and there's nothing to pay; and you choose your own house and live there and do just as you like, and never go to bed unless you want to!"
The artist laid down his brush. "That WOULD be a nice city," he said. "Better than Rome. You can't do that sort of thing in Rome,--or in Piccadilly either. But I fear it's one of the places I've never been to."
"And you'd ask your friends," I went on, warming to my subject,--
"only those you really like, of course,--and they'd each have a house to themselves,--there'd be lots of houses,--and no relations at all, unless they promised they'd be pleasant, and if they weren't they'd have to go."
"So you wouldn't have any relations?" said the artist. "Well, perhaps you're right. We have tastes in common, I see."
"I'd have Harold," I said, reflectively, "and Charlotte. They'd like it awfully. The others are getting too old. Oh, and Martha--I'd have Martha, to cook and wash up and do things.
You'd like Martha. She's ever so much nicer than Aunt Eliza. She's my idea of a real lady."
"Then I'm sure I should like her," he replied, heartily, "and when I come to--what do you call this city of yours? Nephelo-- something, did you say?"
"I--I don't know," I replied, timidly. "I'm afraid it hasn't got a name--yet."
