rches, his basket between his knees and his umbrella between
his two clasped hands. He was talking just as amiably and frankly as
before, and this time he had for audience a dapper man with a thin
face that might have been old or young, and which I disliked at sight.
He was exceedingly well dressed; he looked very respectable, but he
also looked smug and sophisticated--too sophisticated, I thought, to
be really so well entertained as he seemed to be with my rustic
friend's confidences.

For a few moments I watched the two, to the exclusion of the golden
Justice, the peristyle, everything; and then, the settle being long,
and the two being its sole occupants, I moved around, going in and out
unobserved among the crowd, and seated myself upon the end of the
bench, unseen by my friend, who sat with his broad shoulders and back
squarely toward me, and affording an ample screen between myself and
his companion.

I have wondered since just what actuated me to do what I did; but I
only recall now a vague remembrance of a small black book, seen in
memory as in a vision, and a fluttering page which seemed to blazon
forth the question, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' The book?--it was
buried in dead hands long ago; and the words?--they had not been
printed in the book more indelibly than upon my memory.

Why should the sight of this homely, honest rustic bring back these
things? I did not know; but I seated myself in the shelter of his
broad back, and affected to be absorbed in a notebook and the bronzed
plates upon the walls about me, keeping meanwhile, with one ear,
sufficiently close note upon their conversation, and letting my mind
wander.

What a strange scene! Out upon the lagoon swift electric launches
swept by, and gondolas, slower, but graceful and picturesque, glided
to and fro, their lithe boatmen swaying to the sweep of the single
oar.

Why did the sharp-eyed little woman opposite, on the bench in the
shadow of the goddess of Air, eye me so keenly and so long, dividing
her attention, in fact, between myself and a young mother with two
tired children, scarce more than infants both?

Yonder went two Turks, bearing between them, swaying betwixt two long
poles, a genuine Turkish palanquin, and crying, 'Hi! hi!' to those who
obstructed their direct line of march.

Where was the man of authority? I looked at my watch, and my thoughts
came back to myself and my own affairs.

'An hour and a half to wait! I wonder if Br