by, and with more noise--my
umbrella being the target. Often a spoilt fish or half a last week's
cabbage comes my way, whereupon Bob awakes to instant action with a
consequent scattering, the bravest and most agile making faces from
behind wharf spiles and corners. Peter used to build a fence of oars
around me to keep them off, but Bob takes it out in swearing.

Only once did he silence them. They were full grown, this squad, and had
crowded the old man against a tree under which I had backed as shelter
from a passing shower. There came a blow straight from the shoulder, a
sprawling boy, and Bob was in the midst of them, his right sleeve rolled
up, showing a full-rigged ship tattooed in India ink. What poured from
him I learned afterward was an account of his many voyages to the Arctic
and around the Horn, as the label on his arm proved--an experience
which, he shouted, would be utilized in pounding them up into fish bait
if they did not take to their heels. After that he always went to sleep
with one eye open, the boys keeping awake with two--and out of my way--a
result which interested me the more.

If my Luigi was not growing restless in my beloved Venice (it is
wonderful how large a portion of the earth I own) I would love to pass
the rest of my summer along these gray canals, especially since Bob's
development brings a daily surprise. Only to-day I caught sight of him
half hidden in an angle of a wall, surrounded by a group of little tots
who were begging him for paper pin-wheels which a vender had stopped to
sell, an infinitesimal small coin the size of a cuff button purchasing
a dozen or more. When I again looked up from a canvas each tot had a
pin-wheel, and later on Bob, that much poorer in pocket, sneaked back
and promptly went to sleep.

But even Bob's future beatification cannot hold me. I yearn for the
white, blinding light and breathless lagoons, and all that makes Venice
the Queen City of the World.

Luigi meets me _inside_ the station. It takes a _soldo_ to get in, and
Luigi has but few of them, but he is always there. His gondola is
moored to the landing steps outside--a black swan of a boat, all morocco
cushions and silk fringes; the product of a thousand years of tinkering
by the most fastidious and luxurious people of ancient or modern times,
and still to-day the most comfortable conveyance known to man.'

Hurry up, you who have never known a gondola or a Luigi! A
vile-smelling, chuggity-chug is