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The palace of the Saracinesca is in an ancient quarter of Rome, far removed from the broad white streets of mushroom dwelling-houses and machine-laid macadam; far from the foreigners' region, the varnish of the fashionable shops, the whirl of brilliant equipages, and the scream of the newsvendor.

A newsvendor at the corner spreads a newspaper placard upon the wood pavement, pins the corners down with stones, and we glimpse something about: Dear old familiar world! An angry parent in conversation with a sympathetic friend jostles against us. "I'll knock his blooming young 'ed orf if 'e cheeks me again. It's these 'ere brasted Board Schools "

Perhaps they called up the same association of ideas in Thorndyke's mind, for he remarked presently: "The newsvendor is abroad to-night like a bird of ill-omen. Something unusual has happened; some public or private calamity, most likely, and these yelling ghouls are out to feast on the remains. The newspaper men have a good deal in common with the carrion-birds that hover over a battle-field."

The rumble from Piccadilly was all the sound he heard, and with the thought, 'If these motor-cars increase, it'll affect house property, he was about to pass on up to the room always kept ready for him when he heard, distant as yet, the hoarse rushing call of a newsvendor. There it was, and coming past the house! He knocked on his mother's door and went in.

"But it doesn't appear to me that newsmonger is a correct expression," said old Mr Western, who was very conversational; "newsmonger means a gossip, not a tradesman; not that there is any reason why a tradesman should not be a gossip, but " "Aged?" said Mr Morgan, holding his pen suspended in the air. "I will say newsvendor if that will be better one cannot be too particular Aged ?"

Allow me to make room for you, sir," continued he, as he politely made an opening in the crowd, and suffered me to enter the house. "Ah, counsellor, dear, don't be cross," whined out the newsvendor; "sure, isn't it wid the bad tongue we both make our bread. Haven't we reason to bless his ? Ay, the heavens be his bed! 'Tis like Molly Crownahon's husband he was."

The doorway of the hotel was crowded with loungers and idlers of every class, from the loitering man about town to the ragged newsvendor, between whom, whatever disparity of condition existed, a tone of the most free-and-easy condition prevailed; the newsmen interpolating, amid the loud announcements of the latest intelligence, the reply to the observation beside him.

What else, indeed, will permit them to hope?" He ceased, straining his ear to catch the distant cry of a newsvendor, and rushed out into the avenue in pursuit of the fugitive yelping shadow, hailed him, and snatched from him a sporting paper, which he spread out under the light of a gas-lamp, scanning its pages for certain names of horses: Fleur-des-pois, La Châtelaine, Lucrèce.

Perhaps they called up the same association of ideas in Thorndyke's mind, for he remarked presently: "The newsvendor is abroad to-night like a bird of ill-omen. Something unusual has happened: some public or private calamity, most likely, and these yelling ghouls are out to feast on the remains. The newspaper men have a good deal in common with the carrion-birds that hover over a battle-field."

Disaster followed, and that was the end of his career as a newsvendor. Greater leisure for reading, however, compensated the loss of the occasional penny. And dukes and countesses lived the most resplendent lives, and spoke such beautiful language, and had such a way with them! He felt a curious pride in being able to enter into all their haughty emotions.