llen emphasis which declared his
unwilling surrender, while he plied his oar with quick, wrathful
strokes. "It will take more than aves to make a saint of thee! And thou
mayst hold thy head too high, looking for better than wheaten bread! But
I'm not the man to wear a curb, nor to put up with thorns where I looked
for roses! Thou hast no right to mind what chances to me--yet thou hast
made me give up the old life."

"Because I knew thou couldst do better. See where thou standest to-day!
It is not a little thing to be a governor of the Nicolotti!"

"It is a truth," Piero confessed, "upside down, and not to boast of,
for whoever tries it would wish it less. The bancali are 'like asses who
carry wine and drink water,' for the good of the clouts, in days like
these."

"I heard them talking to-day, Piero. The _barcarioli tosi_ are worse
than Turks; one must pay, to suit their whim, in the middle of the Canal
Grande, or one may wait long for the landing! And there was a scandal
about a friar of San Zanipolo, of whom they had asked a fare for the
crossing; I know not the truth of it! And at Santa Sofia the great cross
with the beautiful golden lustre is gone, and one says it is the
'tosi.'"

Piero winced, for, to an ancient "toso," or even to a "bancalo" of
to-day, such enormities had not the exciting novelty that might have
been expected, and Marina had a curious habit of seeming entirely to
forget his past when she wished to exact his best of him.

"And Gabriele--"

"Fash not thyself for a man of his measure, that is fitter to 'beat the
fishes' like a galley-slave than to serve an honest gondola!" Piero
interrupted scornfully.

"But Piero, Gabriele hath sold his license to one worse than he, and
there was great talk of quarrels along the Riva, and how that yesterday
they sent for Padre Gervasio from San Gregorio to bring the Host to
quiet them."

"Ah, the Castellani!" said Piero, with the contempt that was always
ready for any mention of this great rival faction of the people whose
division into one or other of these factions was absolute.

"But the Nicolotti have their scandal also," Marina asserted,
uncompromisingly; "among themselves it is told they break the laws like
men not bound by vows! Some say there will be an appeal to the
Consiglio."

"Nay," said Piero, with an ominous frown; "the _bancali_ and _gastaldi_
are enough; we need no bossing by crimson robes."

This question of the traghetti and their ab