A young Greek talked of Athens, all aglow with fervour, to an art-student, one of those completely self-sufficient girls who are so typical of Melbourne. “But why?” I heard her ask, with the curiously drawled accent—also typical, both question and accent; for the Australian likes all his or her information to be precise—with the reason thereof plainly showed, and “but why?” is their crushing response to most of our enthusiastic eulogiums on the old order of things. They were an interesting couple from their very contrast; but soon, one’s wandering attention would float away on a new stream, piloted most likely by one of the best talkers of the place, a man who was so completely soaked in the spirit and literature, the eternal glow and romance, of the Renaissance, that it seemed always as if Providence must have merely amused itself, in some freakish fit, by reincarnating him here in Melbourne. An atom of imagination was enough, and one was away with him, wandering through the sun-soaked street of old Florence. Gone the babel of talk and laughter, the queer, eager faces, the shabby coats, the bright eyes, and erratic locks; the kerosene-lamps and long table, with its vases of artificial flowers, all quite gone, as one paced demurely by his side, between the stately palaces and high, huddled houses. Peeped through the interstices of the iron gates into the great courtyards at the orange-trees in their stone vases, where such or such a great Prince lived, or such a lady—of a beauty, ah yes! But as to morals—well, a shrug of the shoulders told all there was to be told with propriety. Stopped at this corner, or that, where such and such a party-broil took place, or stood agaze at so-and-so, who wrote those sonnets, or so-and-so who painted so divinely. Then pressed back into a deep doorway while Lorenzo himself—Lorenzo the Magnificent—swept past, with all his gay and courtly suite, to see how the new frescoes came on, which were to make that young Michael and his great master famous throughout the entire world, or so said Lorenzo, bracketing himself and the artist urbanely together. Such a whiff of perfume, such a rustle of stiff brocaded silks, and flow of silver laughter as they passed; then, with a sudden rasping sound, which brought one back with a jerk to the world of reality, the chairs were pushed back over the boarded floors; there was a crash of notes at the piano, and someone would begin to sing. Perhaps the heart-rending words and melody of “A wearing o’ the green,” perhaps the “Marseillaise,” or just as likely “Little Mary.” The coffee was brought, the table cleared. Delicately burning his spoonful of eau-de-vie over his coffee, the Frenchman on my right would throw out some words on Arragon that set my other neighbour aflame, and a hot argument would ensue, each man speaking his own language with a wealth of expletives and abandonment of gesture. Feeling the fiery breath flame on