As I could not absent myself from the office longer than ten days at a time without permission of the government at Washington, I had to return _pro forma_ at that term, when, to my surprise, I found my apartment in possession of a stranger. I intimated his dislodging, to which he replied that he had taken the rooms and paid his rent and would not go. At that time there was a temporary occupation--merely nominal, however--of the legation by ex-Governor Randall of Wisconsin. The minister had taken an apartment where he could mount the arms of the Republic, and had then gone off on his European tour, leaving me in occupation of the post as chargé d'affaires and in care of his rooms. As I had thus another place to sleep in, I evacuated the consular quarters not unwillingly, removing all my effects except a set of silver spoons which my mother had given me on my leaving home, and which were heirlooms. The spoons were being cleaned, the landlady said, and would be ready the next day. I called for them again, and was again deferred, when I went at once to the tribunal and made a claim for my spoons. On statement of the case, the judge gave an order for the immediate and unconditional delivery of the plate; but when I went to get them at the tribunal, he said it was lucky for me that I came when I did, as the landlady had come in the afternoon and applied for an order against me to pay another month's rent (always paid in advance), and that if she had come first he should have been obliged to give it to her. I explained that I had been driven out of the apartment by another occupant; but that, he said, made no difference, the first applicant for justice would alone have been heard. Not long after, a similar case called for my more or less official recognition. My colleague the consul at Florence had come for a visit to Rome, and had taken a cab to make the rounds of the sights, and, making his visit to the church of Ara Coeli, he of course left the cab at the foot of the stairs. He found little which interested him in the church, and, returning sooner than the cabman expected, he found no cab there. In the course of the day he went to the police court and asked for a punishment for the cabman for having deserted him on his round. The cabman was summoned and fined accordingly; but the magistrate remarked to my friend when he came to give evidence that it was fortunate for him that he complained first, for the cabman had come later in the day and asked for his fare for the night which he had passed at the foot of the stairs waiting for the return of the _forestiero_; and he added that if the cabman had come first, my friend would have been obliged to pay the claim. It was simple and expeditious, first come being first served, but hardly good civil administration.