For two hours rank and wealth, and obscurity and poverty clatter along side by side in the wild procession, and then go home serene, happy, covered with glory! I was looking at a magnificent marble staircase in the King's palace, the other day, which, it was said, cost five million francs, and I suppose it did cost half a million, may be.

I felt as if it must be a fine thing to live in a country where there was such comfort and such luxury as this.
And then I stepped out musing, and almost walked over a vagabond who was eating his dinner on the curbstone--a piece of bread and a bunch of grapes.

When I found that this mustang was clerking in a fruit establishment (he had the establishment along with him in a basket,) at two cents a day, and that he had no palace at home where he lived, I lost some of my enthusiasm concerning the happiness of living in Italy.
This naturally suggests to me a thought about wages here.

Lieutenants in the army get about a dollar a day, and common soldiers a couple of cents.
I only know one clerk--he gets four dollars a month.

Printers get six dollars and a half a month, but I have heard of a foreman who gets thirteen.
To be growing suddenly and violently rich, as this man is, naturally makes him a bloated aristocrat.