subjected her to their shameless mockery.

Colonel Kenton followed the consul downstairs when he went away, and
pretended to justify himself. "I'll tell her one of these days," he
said, "but there's no use distressing her now."

"I didn't understand you at first," said the other. "But I see now it
was the only way."

"Yes; saves needless suffering. I say, Davis, this is about an even
thing between us? A United States consul ought to be of some use to his
fellow-citizens abroad; and if he allows them to walk their legs off
hunting up a hotel which he could have found at the first police-station
if _he had happened to think of it_, he won't be very anxious to tell
the joke, I suppose?"

"I don't propose to write home to the papers about it."

"All right." So, in the court-yard of the Wild Man, they parted.

Long after that Mrs. Kenton continued to recommend people to the
Kaiserin Elisabeth. Even when the truth was made known to her she did
not see much to laugh at. "I'm sure I was always very glad the colonel
didn't tell me at once," she said, "for if I had known what I had been
through, I certainly _should_ have gone distracted."

TONELLI'S MARRIAGE.

There was no richer man in Venice than Tommaso Tonelli, who had enough
on his florin a day; and none younger than he, who owned himself
forty-seven years old. He led the cheerfullest life in the world, and
was quite a monster of content; but when I come to sum up his pleasures,
I fear that I shall appear to my readers to be celebrating a very
insipid and monotonous existence. I doubt if even a summary of his
duties could be made attractive to the conscientious imagination of
hard-working people; for Tonelli's labors were not killing, nor, for
that matter, were those of any Venetian that I ever knew. He had a
stated employment in the office of the notary Cenarotti; and he passed
there so much of every working day as lies between nine and five
o'clock, writing upon deeds and conveyances and petitions and other
legal instruments for the notary, who sat in an adjoining room, secluded
from nearly everything in this world but snuff. He called Tonelli by the
sound of a little bell; and, when he turned to take a paper from his
safe, he seemed to be abstracting some secret from long-lapsed
centuries, which he restored again, and locked back among the dead ages
when his clerk replaced the document in his hands. These hands were very
soft and pale, and their owner was