direction, appeared a party of young fellows, evidently students; and the lovers walked quietly away.
The young men came up in great glee. One read the inscription aloud, two or three gesticulating vigorously to his emphasis, Vociferous plaudits followed the performance. "Bravo!" cried one, "those lines are worthy of the old 'Many-Sided himself; not unlike"——— "Our subject, gentlemen, is Time," broke in another with an oratorical tone; "a very important one, when you consider how long we may be kept here, subjected to such entertainment as is served up for us at the Inferno over the way. Nevertheless it is my duty to caution you. Beware of impatience. Do well and wait. Let it be your consolation that time flies swiftly; for what says Horatius Flaccus?
'To-morrow will be one day after to-day,
and
One more day carries us a day farther on.'
That shall be the inscription on my sun-dial, when I erect one. But I am growing tedious; I perceive it myself; I beg pardon for interrupting some body, who was about to say something. Pray, proceed." "Good people," harangued another of the group, mounting a large stone for a rostrum, "permit me to arouse you to a sense of your unhappy condition. You are neglecters of the present; while you spend your precious moments here, Alfieri Fieralfi is cooking his last onion. Carpe diem. You doubt, you gainsay, you deny absolutely, you don't budge, one of you, after that onion. You are thinking of Godot's soups and Stein's fricandeaus. What a mistake! what a fatal error! Listen to me. Look not behind; the past is monumental salt; 'a living dog is better than a dead lion;' so the present living and breathing onion is worth more than a kitchen-full of have-beens, whether roasted, stewed, or fried! All which Master Schiller (catching the thought from me) indifferently well paraphrases as follows:
