nd your old churches and things!

_Culch._ I don't feel disposed to--er--"poke around" alone; so, if you
will allow me to accompany you,--

_Miss T._ Oh, I'll allow you to escort me. It's handy having someone
around to carry parcels. And Poppa's bound to drop the balance every
time!

_Culch._ (_to himself_). That's all I am to her. A beast of
burden! And a whole precious morning squandered on this confounded
shopping--when I might have been--ah, well! [_Follows, under protest._

_On the Grand Canal. 9 P.M. A brilliant moonlight night; a
music-barge, hung with coloured lanterns, is moving slowly up towards
the Rialto, surrounded and followed by a fleet of gondolas, amongst
which is one containing the TROTTERS and CULCHARD. CULCHARD has
just discovered--with an embarrassment not wholly devoid of a certain
excitement--that they are drawing up to a gondola occupied by the
PRENDERGASTS and PODBURY._

_Mr. Trotter_ (_meditatively_). It's real romantic. That's the third
deceased kitten I've seen to-night. They haven't only a two-foot tide
in the Adriatic, and it stands to reason all the sewage--

[_The two gondolas are jammed close alongside._

_Miss P._ How absolutely magical those palaces look in the moonlight!
BOB, how _can_ you yawn like that?

_Bob_. I beg your pardon, 'PATIA, really, but we've had rather a long
day of it, you know!

_Mr. T._ Well, now, I declare I sort of recognised those voices!
(_Heartily._) Why, how are _you_ getting along in Vernis? _We_'re
gettin' along fust-rate. Say, MAUD, here's your friend alongside!

[_Miss P. preserves a stony silence._

_Miss T._ (_in an undertone_). I don't see how you _can_ act so,
Poppa--when you know she's just as _mad_ with me!

_Mr. T._ There! Electrocuted if I didn't clean forget you were out!
But, see here, now--why cann't we let bygones be bygones?

_Bob_. (_impulsively_). Just what _I_ think, Mr. TROTTER, and I'm sure
my sister will--

_Miss P._ BOB, will you kindly not make the situation more awkward
than it is? If I desired a reconciliation, I think I am quite capable
of saying so!

_Miss T._ (_in confidence to the Moon_). This Ark isn't proposing to
send out any old dove, either--we've no use for an olive-branch. (_To_
Mr. T.) That's "_Santa Lucia_" they're singing now, Poppa.

_Mr. T._ They don't appear to me to get the twist on it they did at
Bellagio!

_Miss T._ You mean that night CHARLEY took us out on the Lake?
Poor CHARLEY! h