Pasquino's Car was passing underneath just as Katy and Mrs. Ashe arrived,--a gorgeous affair, hung with silken draperies, and bearing as symbol an enormous egg, in which the Carnival was supposed to be in act of incubation. A huge wagon followed in its wake, on which was a house some sixteen feet square, whose sole occupant was a gentleman attended by five servants, who kept him supplied with _confetti_, which he showered liberally on the heads of the crowd. Then came a car in the shape of a steamboat, with a smoke-pipe and sails, over which flew the Union Jack, and which was manned with a party wearing the dress of British tars. The next wagon bore a company of jolly maskers equipped with many-colored bladders, which they banged and rattled as they went along. Following this was a troupe of beautiful circus horses, cream-colored with scarlet trappings, or sorrel with blue, ridden by ladies in pale green velvet laced with silver, or blue velvet and gold. Another car bore a bird-cage which was an exact imitation of St. Peter's, within which perched a lonely old parrot. This device evidently had a political signification, for it was alternately hissed and applauded as it went along. The whole scene was like a brilliant, rapidly shifting dream; and Katy, as she stood with lips apart and eyes wide open with wonderment and pleasure, forgot whether she was in the body or not,--forgot everything except what was passing before her gaze. She was roused by a stinging shower of lime-dust. An Englishman in the next balcony had take courteous advantage of her preoccupation, and had flung a scoopful of _confetti_ in her undefended face! It is generally Anglo-Saxons of the less refined class, English or Americans, who do these things at Carnival times. The national love of a rough joke comes to the surface, encouraged by the license of the moment, and all the grace and prettiness of the festival vanish. Katy laughed, and dusted herself as well as she could, and took refuge behind her mask; while a nimble American boy of the party changed places with her, and thenceforward made that particular Englishman his special target, plying such a lively and adroit shovel as to make Katy's assailant rue the hour when he evoked this national reprisal. His powdered head and rather clumsy efforts to retaliate excited shouts of laughter from the adjoining balconies. The young American, fresh from tennis and college athletics, darted about and dodged with an agility impossible to his heavily built foe; and each effective shot and parry on his side was greeted with little cries of applause and the clapping of hands on the part of those who were watching the contest.