Leaving Segni about ten o'clock in the morning, they had hardly reached a bridle path down the mountain, nothing more in fact than a gully, when they were joined by a cavalcade of four other Segnians. One of them, the 'funny fellow' of the party, was mounted on a very meek-looking donkey, and enlivened the hot ride across the valley of the Sacco by spasmodic attempts to lead the cavalcade and come in ahead of the others. He had a lively time as they approached the city, and a joke with every foot passenger on the way; but Gaetano, whose reserve was one of his strong points, and who was anxious to enter Anagni under favorable auspices, gave the word to Caper, and in a few minutes they left cavalcade and donkey-rider far behind.

Anagni, the ancient Anagnia, was the capital of the Hernici. The favorite residence, in the middle ages, of several of the popes, it still shows in its building marks of the wealth it once enjoyed. Having stabled their horses with a friend of Gaetano's, who insisted on their finishing the best part of a bottiglia of red wine with him, the artist, under the landlord's guidance, set out to see the town. They climbed up street to the cathedral, a fine old pile trembling with music and filled with worshippers, paintings of saints in extremis, flowers, wax candles, votary offerings, and heat; then coming out, and feeling wolfish, looked round for a place where they could find dinner! Here it was! a scene that would have cheered Teniers: a very large room, its walls brown with smoke; long wooden tables, destitute of cloth, but crowded with country people eating, drinking, talking, enjoying themselves to the utmost extent. Forks were invisible, but every man had his own knife, and Caper, similarly provided, whipped out his long pocket weapon and commenced an attack on roast lamb and bread, as if time were indeed precious. Wine was provided at Fair price; and, with fruit, he managed to cry at last, 'Hold, enough!'