Passing through a narrow side street on my way back to my hotel, I
perceived above a doorway a sign which it seemed to me I had read before.
I suddenly remembered that it was identical with the superscription of a
card that I had carried for an hour in my waistcoat pocket. On the
threshold stood the ingenious artist whose claims to public favour were
thus distinctly signalised, smoking a pipe in the evening air, and giving
the finishing polish with a bit of rag to one of his inimitable
"combinations." I caught the expressive curl of a couple of tails. He
recognised me, removed his little red cap with a most obsequious bow, and
motioned me to enter his studio. I returned his salute and passed on,
vexed with the apparition. For a week afterwards, whenever I was seized
among the ruins of triumphant Rome with some peculiarly poignant memory
of Theobald's transcendent illusions and deplorable failure, I seemed to
hear a fantastic, impertinent murmur, "Cats and monkeys, monkeys and
cats; all human life there!"
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE***
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