A young American in Rome, flattered by a title and a shabby-genteel circle of expatriates, spends his money proving he belongs among them - and the compatriots he snubs turn out to be the only people who behave decently. Tarkington was an Indianapolis man and one of only four writers to take the Pulitzer for fiction twice; this 1907 novella is a small, exact study of snobbery, and it costs the hero everything he has.