The food was excellent, the wine acceptable, the proprietor attentive and the mise-en-scène congenial. Down the narrowest of alleyways they looked into Piazza Navona, and saw the water god Il Moro in combat with his Fish, suberbly lit. They could almost hear the splash of his fountains above the multiple voice of Rome at night. Groups of youths moved elegantly about Navona and arrogant girls thrust bosoms like those of figure-heads at the eddying crowds. The midsummer night pulsed with its own beauty. Barnaby felt within himself an excitement that rose from a more potent ferment than their gentle wine could induce. He was exalted.

He leant back in his chair, fetched a deep breath, caught Mr. Mailer’s eye and laughed. “I feel,” he said, “as if I had only just arrived in Rome.”

“And perhaps as if the night had only just begun?”

“Something of the sort.”

“Adventure?” Mailer hinted.

Perhaps, after all, the wine had not been so gentle. There was an uncertainty about what he saw when he looked at Mailer, as if a new personality emerged. “He really has got very rum eyes,” thought Barnaby, tolerantly.

“An adventure?” the voice insisted. “May I help you, I wonder? A cicerone?”

“May I help you?” Barnaby thought. “He might be a shop assistant.” But he stretched himself a little and heard himself say lightly: “Well, — in what way?”

“In any way,” Mailer murmured. “Really, in any way at all. I’m versatile.”

“Oh,” Barnaby said. “I’m very orthodox, you know. The largest Square,” he added and thought the addition brilliantly funny, “in Rome.”

“Then, if you will allow me—”

The proprietor was there with his bill. Barnaby thought that the little trattoria had become very quiet, but when he looked round he saw that all the patrons were still there and behaving quite normally. He had some difficulty in finding the right notes but Mr. Mailer helped him and Barnaby begged him to give a generous tip.