 Walpole 's taste for adventure did not <unk> in his last years . In 1939 he was commissioned to report for William Randolph <unk> 's newspapers on the funeral in Rome of Pope Pius XI , the conclave to elect his successor , and the subsequent coronation . A fellow correspondent was Tom <unk> , whose memoirs tell of a lunch à <unk> at which Walpole arrived flushed with excitement from a sexual encounter that morning with an attendant in the <unk> Palace . In the weeks between the funeral and Pius XII 's election Walpole , with his customary fluency , wrote much of his book Roman Fountain , a mixture of fact and fiction about the city . This was his last overseas visit . 
