But to return to _Mora_. As I was walking out beyond the Porta San Giovanni the other day, I heard the most ingenious and consolatory periphrasis for a defeat that it was ever my good-fortune to hear; and, as it shows the peculiar humor of the Romans, it may here have a place. Two of a party of _contadini_ had been playing at _Mora_, the stakes being, as usual, a bottle of wine, and each, in turn, had lost and won. A lively and jocose discussion now arose between the friends on the one side and the players on the other,--the former claiming that each of the latter was to pay his bottle of wine for the game he lost, (to be drunk, of course, by all,) and the latter insisting, that, as one loss offset the other, nothing was to be paid by either. As I passed, one of the players was speaking. "_Il primo partito_," he said, "_ho guadagnato io; e poi, nel secondo_,"--here a pause,--"_ho perso la vittoria_": "The first game, I won; the second, I----_lost the victory_." And with this happy periphrasis, our friend admitted his defeat. I could not but think how much better it would have been for the French, if this ingenious mode of adjusting with the English the Battle of Waterloo had ever occurred to them. To admit that they were defeated was of course impossible; but to acknowledge that they "lost the victory" would by no means have been humiliating. This would have soothed their irritable national vanity, prevented many heart-burnings, saved long and idle arguments and terrible "kicking against the pricks," and rendered a friendly alliance possible.