You pay a paul, (and give the bouquet to--your landlady's daughter,) while the departing _mercante di fiori_ assures you that he never, no, never expects to make a fortune at flowers; but if he gains enough to pay for his wine, he will be very tipsy as long as he lives! Then comes an old man, with a chessboard of inlaid stone, which he hasn't an idea of selling; but finds it excellent to 'move on,' without being checkmated as a beggar without visible means of s'port. The first time he brought it round, and held it out square to Caper, that cool young man, taking a handful of coppers from his pocket, arranged them as checkers on the board, without taking any notice of the man; and after he had placed them, began playing deliberately. He rested his chin on his hand, and with knitted brows, studied several intricate moves; he finally jumped the men, so as to leave a copper or two on the board; and bidding the old man good-night, continued a conversation with Rocjean, commenced previous to his game of draughts. Next approaches a hardware--merchant, for, in Imperial Rome, the peddler of a colder clime is a merchant, the shoemaker an artist, the artist a professor. The hardware-man looks as if he might be 'touter' to a broken-down brigand. All the razors in his box couldn't keep the small part of his face that is shaved from wearing a look as if it had been blown up with gunpowder, while the grains had remained embedded there. He tempts you with a wicked-looking knife, the pattern for which must have come from the _litreus_ of Etruria, the land called the _mother of superstitions_, and have been wielded for auguries amid the howls and groans of lucomones and priests. He tells you it is a Campagna-knife, and that you must have one if you go into that benighted region; he says this with a mysterious shake of his head, as if he had known Fra Diavolo in his childhood and Fra 'Tonelli in his riper years. The crescent-shaped handle is of black bone; the pointed blade long and tapering; the three notches in its back catch into the spring with a noise like the alarum of a rattle-snake. You conclude to buy one--for a curiosity. You ask why the blade at the point finishes off in a circle? He tells you the government forbids the sale of sharp-pointed knives; but, signore, if you wish to _use it_, break off the circle under your heel, and you have a point sharp enough to make any man have an _accidente di freddo_, (death from cold--steel.)