ment, then turned himself on his sound foot and set his crutches
before him to go in. Pasquale was there, and must have heard what had
passed. He shut the door and followed Zorzi back a little way.

"It is no concern of mine," he said roughly. "You may amuse yourself as
you please, for you are young, and your host may be the Archangel
Michael himself, or the holy Saint Mark, and the house to which you are
bidden may be a paradise full of other angels! But I would as soon sit
down before the grating and look at the hooded brother, while the
executioner slipped the noose over my head to strangle me, as to go to
any place on a bidding delivered by a fellow with such a jail-bird's
head. It is as round as a bullet and as yellow as cheese. He has eyes
like a turtle's and teeth like those of a young shark."

"I am quite of your opinion," said Zorzi, halting at the entrance to the
garden.

"Then why did you not kick him into the canal?" inquired the porter,
with admirable logic.

"Do I look as if I could kick anything?" asked Zorzi, laughing and
glancing at his lame foot.

"And where should I have been?" inquired Pasquale indignantly. "Asleep,
perhaps? If you had said 'kick,' I would have kicked. Perhaps I am a
statue!"

Zorzi pointed out that it was not usual to answer invitations in that
way, even when declining them.

"And who knows what sort of invitation it was?" retorted the old porter
discontentedly. "Since when have you friends in Venice who bid you come
to their houses at night, like a thief? Honest men, who are friends, say
'Come and eat with me at noon, for to-day we have this, or this'--say, a
roast sucking pig, or tripe with garlic. And perhaps you go; and when
you have eaten and drunk and it is the cool of the afternoon, you come
home. That is what Christians do. Who are they that meet at night? They
are thieves, or conspirators, or dice-players, or all three."

Pasquale happened to have been right in two guesses out of three, and
Zorzi thought it better to say nothing. There was no fear that the surly
old man would tell any one of the message; he had proved himself too
good a friend to Zorzi to do anything which could possibly bring him
into trouble, and Zorzi was willing to let him think what he pleased,
rather than run the smallest risk of betraying the society of which he
had been obliged to become a member. But he was curious to know why
Contarini kept such a singularly unprepossessing servant, and w