Wednesday morning a bugle sounded in the street under our windows. I looked out and saw a group of young men wearing gay fifteenth century plush caps, and on their arms a strip of white cloth with the words “_Pro Calabria e Sicilia_” in red letters. The bugle sounded again. I knew what the summons meant, caught up the pile of extra clothing I had sorted out, snatched an overcoat and a cloak from the rack in the hall and ran downstairs into the street. I was immediately surrounded by half a dozen lads with fresh shining schoolboy faces. They carried between them, two by two, heavy wooden money boxes with a slit in the top, which they rattled and offered to all who passed. “Who are these?” I asked the tall boy with a scarlet cap on his mop of brown curls, who relieved me of the coat and cloak. He made me the bow of a prince as he answered: “We are the students of the University of Rome, Signora, at your service.” In Italy, an old country where we find that supreme virtue of age, thrift, even spendthrift Americans grow cautious about spending money. I had meant to put a few sous in the box, but the eager eyes, the urgent voices, overcame discretion. I emptied my small purse, heavy with silver for the day’s expenses, into the first money box and so bought the sufferance of the students. I was now immune from other demands and free to follow them on their errand of mercy. Another trumpet call and the students, laden with gifts, swarmed like honey bees to the hive about the lean obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo, just outside the monastery with the tall cypresses, in whose shade Luther paced, deep in the thoughts that were to change the course of history. In the middle of the piazza stood forage cart number 24 of the 13th Regiment of Artillery. The cart was drawn by two big army mules, one of them ridden by a soldier. At the back of the cart sat the bugler, a hard, merry, Irish-faced man with a snub nose and a missing tooth; he looked a living proof of Boni’s theory that the Celts and the Italians were originally of the same race. In the cart beside the bugler stood a young student with soft brown eyes and the rich coloring of the southern Italian; he wore an orange velvet cap on the back of his head and seemed to be chosen for his beauty, as the third man in the cart (a rather plain shabby fellow with a bandaged throat) had been chosen for his voice. The bugler sounded his trumpet, the driver cracked his whip and the procession started. The cart was closely followed by two artillery men in uniform and surrounded by that host of clustering students, busy as bees with their task of gathering _soldi_.