LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7163, 14 May 1891, Page 1

LITERATURE.

CHILDREN WHO HAVE MADE STORIES.

A PRETTY ROMAN BEGGAR.

£By Fbancis Hodgson Btjbnbtt, Author of " Little Lord Pauntleroy."} {The Liader.) I hope that a great many young Aus•tralians have Been Some. Australians travel so much, and are bo often accompanied by their children that I am sure a great number of boys and girls have seen the most beautiful and interesting cities. There are so many children on every steamer on the homeward voyage. They form an important feature of one's ex- . istence during the voyage. If one likes children they are an entertaining feature, they seem to enjoy themselves so much ; if one is not fond of them, and sea sickness makes one cross, I dare say they sometimes seem noißy. For my part I like to lie in my steamer chair and watch them play shuffle-board and throw the rope rings, and I amuse myself by wondering how they will like London, and if they will be interested in the Tower, whether they will care for Paris, and what thoughts the Colosseum, with the wild beasts' dens, and the stories of j the Gladiators and the Veßtal Virgins will -awaken in their .practical little minds. The dearest thing I saw in Florence the laßt time I was there was a delightful little American boy of seven, and one of the most charming and suggestive. in Borne was a Bznall fellow about the same age, who Bat surrounded by the stately wonders and spaces of St Peter's, his bright, eager, 'thoughtful child face upturned to his mother and father, who were sitting and talking together near him. I have become quite clever in recognising American and •English faces, and I knew this little boy waa an American, and there was something in his clear, wide awake eyes that made me want to stop before him and hold out my hand and say :— " Come with me and I will show you the wonderful old places I know eo well, and we will tell each other stories about them. We can make marvellous stories in almost every street, and I shall find out all sorts of new things when I see the templeß and palaces and great ruins through your seven-year-old American eyes." Sut as we were quite strangers to each other, I could only smile at him and pass him by. I had been sent away from London by my doctors, because I had been ill for along time after an accident I had met with in the autumn when I had been thrown out of my carriage and dangerously hurt. They said that London fogs were bad for me, and I must travel where I could see the blue sky and the sun. So I went to the South of France and Italy, and that ia why I went to Eome, which is one of the cities I love best of all. I wanted to be quiet so I went to a hotel which an English Eoman told me afterwards was "the oldest, the most respectable, and the dullest in Borne." But that exactly pleased me, and I could not be dull with three interesting people with me and all old Borne around me. I liked the old hotel. I liked my apartments and my comfortable salon with the mysterious frescoes in the ceiling — the frescoes we were always trying to explain to each other as if they were conundrums. Especially I was fond of the one old Bquare with the elephant bearing an obelisk on its back in the centre, and the hoary, wonderful old Pantheon at the corner. It was in thi3 square I learned to know jny pretty beggar whom I want to make a tiny sketch of, to hang in my gallery of children. My little Roman, as far as beauty goes, is one of the most perfect small pictures I remember, and he is chiefly interesting as a study because he belongs to a profession which, I think, does not really -exist in America, and because I was so curious to know what thoughts there were behind his beautiful child eyes, or if it could be that there were no definite thoughts He was a professional beggar and a professional beauty, and, though he was only about five years old, it waa quite plain that he knew perfectly well what an assistance to the first profession the last one was. He -would have been taught to beg if he had not been handsome at all, but I am sure that he knew that he would not have had 60 many patrons, or half bo many soldi if lie had not been so pretty to look at. To a stranger it seema that every Eoman child who is nob rich is taught to regard begging as a sort of honest industry which - any useful infant will cultivate. After one becomes somewhat accustomed to the swarms of little bojß and girls who ruth to one'B carriage when it stops before a church or palace, and scramble clamouring up the long flight of steps after one, they begin to be even a little amusing. They do not -look the least uncomfortable or hungry; some of them are pretty, and often they are picturesque because they are dressed in the Eoman peasants' dress, in the hope that some artist will want to put them in a picture and pay them for sitting as modelfl. And they generally appear to be amusing themselves together, and seem to find it rather a joke to chase after these princely strangers who have nothing better to do than drive about and look at churches, and pictures, and ruins. lam convinced that they think us great simpletons, but they would be sorry to see us wiser because that would make their profession less lnorative. It is their cheerful audacity which makes one-smile at last. They know the foreatieri so well (forestieri ia the Italian word for foreigners). They know that a rather shy or inexperienced one will feel that if a bouquet of violets is forced into his or her hand it must be paid for, so violets are thrown into one's carriage, little ■clusters are forcibly attached to the ooats ■of masculine pasaera-by, and it is only •when one has become quite hardened that .one discovers how to toss them back into the small basket with an amiable smile and No grazie, no. There is another thing they have learned, which is that even the jorestieri who do not understand Italian to speak it are more than likoly to know French, so some of the smallest ones have been taught one, or perhaps two, mournful F/eneh phrases, which they say over and over again as they run after one. I shall not soon forget a plump, well-fed, cheerful ! 3ibtle girl in a gay apron and Eoman head gear, who trotted after me up and ■down a long flight of steps near the Fincia flaying as fast as she could, Je rowers de /atom. Je mvers de /aim, which is French for "I die of hunger. I die of hunger." ** Ton little story teller," said the English lady who was with me. "You are stuff ed as full of macaroni as you can possibly be." And, though she spoke English, the child evidently recognised that she had not produced her effect on the Inglesi, for she gave us up as a bad investment, with a sly little smile. I suppose my pretty beggar boy had been a model as well as a beggar ever since he could walk, perhaps even before. His mother and the woman who was always with Aer were evidently models when they had good fortune. They were handsome women, who wore the picturesque Eoman dress, and aat or stood in the sun in the old square, with baskets of voilets near them, which they profess to sell. About them played my pretty little Eoman and his companion, who was about the same j»ge a* himself, and almost equally pretty. Both at them were dressed like Bmall copies of picturesque bandits on the stage ; they had ehort, bright coloured jackets and knee breeches, av<d bands crossed round their legs, and both had ,broad brimmed, rather pointed hats of wA c felt on their f nil, silky, curling hair.

They were both charming, but my little fellow was either the bolder or the prettier or the more coaxing of the two, I don't know which is was, but somehow he always seemed to know quite well that he was my favourite. He had such soft round cheeks, the colour of a very ripe peach, such large, soft brown eyes and such a lot of thick chestnut brown curls. His curls looked soft, too ; he looked soft and warm all over, as if he would feel like a rabbit or a squirrel if one took him in one's arms. The first time I saw him was one afternoon when I was going to drive to the Pincio to hear the band whioh plays there every day from four to six. My carriage used to wait in the courtyard until I came down the stairs and got into it at the foot of them ; but this day, after we had driven through the entrance into the square, we had to send for a cushion or something which had been forgotten, and bo we waited and my pretty beggar saw us. He was very faithful to the exigencies of his profession. I noticed afterward that he always stopped playing when he saw anyone approaching to whom his business intincts taught him he mußt apply, and he always trotted after them quite far enough to give them a fair trial. So, seeing the carriage with two horseß and a comparatively resplendent coachman waiting before the courtyard entrance of the big hotel, and seeing that it contained forestieri — ladies in velvet and furs, one of whom even leaned against a crimson silk cushion, he felt that this was a business opportunity not to be neglected and came running across the square followed by his companion. I suppose it was the crimaon cushion which caused him to single me out, or perhaps he had seen me smiling at his prettiness as he ran towards us in the sun — certainly both he and his friend directed their active attention to me.

(To be continued.)