He told me that the younger man was a young _religieux_, and the two turned and went back with me.
"I recalled, as I saw Father Secchi, an anecdote I had heard, no way to his credit,--except for ingenious trickery.

It was said that coming to America he brought with him the object-glass of a telescope, at a time when scientific apparatus paid a high duty.

Being asked by some official what the article was, he replied, 'My looking-glass,' and in that way passed it off as personal wardrobe, so escaped the duty.

(It may have been De Vico.) "Father Secchi had brought with him, to show me, negatives of the planet Saturn,--the rings showing beautifully, although the image was not more than half an inch in size.
"I was ignorant enough of the ways of papal institutions, and, indeed, of all Italy, to ask if I might visit the Roman Observatory.

I remembered that the days of Galileo were days of two centuries since.