I Had Merely Reflected That I
Could Not Hope To Carry Out My Scheme Without Greater Expense Both In
Time
And money than I could well afford, for, though cabs in Rome are
swift and cheap, yet the piazzas are
Many and widely distributed; and I
finally decided to indulge myself in a novelty of adventure verging
close upon originality. It had always seemed to me that the happy
strangers mounted on the tiers of seats that rise from front to back on
the motor-chariots for seeing New York and looking down, even from the
lowest place, on the life of our streets had a peculiar, almost a
bird's-eye view of it which I might well find the means of a fresh
impression. But I never had the courage, for reasons which I have not
the courage to give, though the reader can perhaps imagine them. In Rome
I did not feel that the like reasons held; of all the unknown, I was one
of the most unknown; by me nobody would be put to the shame of
recognizing an acquaintance on the benches of the like chariot, or
forced to the cruelty of cutting him in my person. When once I had fully
realized this, it was only a question of the time when I should yield to
the temptation which renewed itself as often as I saw the stately
automobile passing through the storied streets, with its English legend
of "Touring Rome" inscribed on the back of the rear seat.
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