which had kept him, he averred, in Rome a week longer than he intended, he abruptly accosts our Italian friend, assuring him that
we have now become such a knowing proficient in all the tricks imposed upon travellers, and in all the various guiles of antiquaries as practised at Naples, that it would be difficult to impose upon us; and that, in fact,
he would back us now against being cheated by the best of
them– modest man! he might have said of
us, in place of presenting a false lamp of dirty device, which threw the altering of this pronoun, and the substitution of the right one, upon the party whom he had been so politely praising. Purposing to start early next morning, most of our effects, both old and new, were packed up already; a few of the former, however, still remained out, and stood on a neighbouring side table. "What a beautiful
Ryton!" said Don G. Sbano sauntering across the room, and taking up a finely executed stag's head in
terra cotta, that had originally served for a drinking-cup – a purchase we had that morning made at old Rossi's curiosity shop. "Beautiful, indeed," replied we carelessly, and then
sotto voce to our friend – "poor Rossi, pleased at our sincere sympathy at his late sad bereavements – he has lost two charming daughters within a month – insisted upon transferring it to us quite as a
regallo at twenty piastres," – these words were spoken in a low tone of voice, but Don Gaetano made it a point to hear every thing. "Of course we knew,"
enquired he maliciously, "that it was a forgery in all but the lips?" "And if the lips be true, it by no means follows, Signor, that because the
lips are true, the
vessel appended to them must be so." If any man ought to know about
lying lips, it was Sbano; so at once admitting the truth of what indeed there was no gainsaying, we contended that the indestructibility of the glaze, tested as it had been with aquafortis by Rossi himself, proved the genuineness of its antiquity – it proved nothing but that we had something still to learn! The nola varnish was light as a soap-bubble, but this on the
Ryton was thick and substantial. How he wished we had been to stay another week to have taught us the difference! and how we wished him gone, lest he should make some new revelations of a kindred character to the last, and betray our ignorance in sundry other matters connected with other recent purchases. The door has scarcely closed upon his coat-tails when in comes a tall strapping fellow out of breath, who begs to take a chair, and declares forthwith that he is "tutto bagnato di sudore," – in our service, and he hopes it may not be in vain! After administering to him proper restoratives, (the remains of an
agro-dolce, and half a bottle of lachryma,) four battered pieces of lead are presented by him for inspection, looking very much as if they had just been scraped from the house-top, but which, when duly put together by our ingenuity, make up the highly interesting inscription, – "
Imp: Cæs: Vespas: Aug: Pont: Max: Opt; Princip: P. P.," and are no sooner so collocated than our new-comer seems enchanted at a discovery which he would have us think as important as any thing lately done in that way. After the making of which, he expects that we are to carry over this leaden trophy to England, and is much mortified accordingly at our disheartening remark, that "it was so easy to write upon lead!" Upon seeing that we are indisposed to be cheated, he resolved to humiliate us in the eyes of our friend, which he does effectually by merely glancing at a small
urceolus with a painting on it, and then proclaiming it to be "
ristaurata;" a most ungrateful return, as we think, for our "
restoration" of him. He has scarcely vanished when a third party, "happy to catch us just at dinner-time," is announced; he comes with a mouthful of lies, and a pocketful of trash, and seeing that we are beginning to wince, is retiring, but suddenly recollecting himself, pulls up at the door to ask whether it be true that we have
not bought Coco's
Augustus, since, if we have been so lucky as to purchase it, Coco has in that case cheated him by pretending to have received nothing for it. "Go to – !" exclaimed we, losing all patience at the ignorance thus plainly imputed to us, "do you think we were such a fool as to buy
such a forgery?" Then comes a very
douce, quiet-mannered dealer, wishing, if our friend will excuse him, to have a private interview with us just for a moment, as he has something confidential to communicate. "Signor mio," says he, "when we are in privacy," folding his hands over his breast and looking very contrite, "I am bound to confess to you that the man whom I have hitherto called 'cousin,' is not such, nor indeed any relation or connexion of mine! I know you have been cheated
often,
sadly, and
by him; and, much as it has gone against my heart whenever I have heard him and his crew plot against your ingenuousness, I have long intended to be frank with you, as you have always treated me with frankness. Believe me I have ever opposed your 'ingannazione,' though without success; and, as I have no other shop in which to put my
real antiques excepting this man's, I am glad to pay ten per cent to interest him in their sale; but that
terra cotta cow that he sold you, 'twas a sad piece of business," and he looked at us as a Mackenzie might have looked upon some artless victim to man's depravity! Whereupon a new light seemed all at once to break in upon us, and we resolved to get at the truth, if we could, by a
ruse which should throw him off his guard; so, in place of appearing put out by the discovery, we merely said – "Well, if all forgeries were but nearly as well executed as
that, who would care to buy antiques at all; and besides, as it
is a forgery, we may have a good chance of
getting some more of the casts to take home with us, which we could not have done had the cow been
ancient. How beautifully she stood in her horns and hoofs! and how well must
he have studied the antique, who could have conceived and executed such a cow!" As we had imagined, there was no resisting such an appeal, and Roderick Dhu stood confessed! He now owns himself an extensive proprietor in these cows, and says they are by no means his best productions – offering us the whole dairy at a very moderate price!
