was not cooked
enough to suit Vance. A second was cooked too much. The third was done
to a turn. In the bill, however, were the three, and voices were
lowered, mandolins and guitars were stilled, the oyster man forgot his
shriek, during the five awful minutes when Vance and the _padrone_ had
it out. After that Vance made another _trattoria_ the richer by his
daily _quinto_.

J. and I had our five minutes with the _padrone_ later on once when
Rossi, our waiter, was so slow that our patience gave out and we shook
the dust of the _Panada_ from our feet. But we could not shake off
Rossi. He had arrived with our dinner just as we were vanishing from the
door and was made to pay for it. After that his leisure was spent in
trying to make us pay him back and he would appear at our bedroom door,
or waylay us on the _Riva_, or follow us into the _Orientale_, or run
us down in the _Piazza_, demanding the money as a right, begging for it
as a charity, reducing it by a _centesimo_ every time until we had only
to wait long enough for the debt to be wiped out. But this was at the
end of our stay in Venice, and months of dining at the _Panada_ had
passed before then.

III

[Illustration: Etching by Joseph Pennell
THE CAFE ORIENTALE, VENICE]

I would be as puzzled to explain the attraction of the _Orientale_ on
the _Riva_, unless it was the opportunity it offered for economy. In the
_Piazza_, at the _Quadri_ and _Florian's_, which are to the other
_cafes_ of Venice what St. Mark's is to the other churches, coffee was
twenty _centesimi_ and the waiter expected five more, but at the
_Orientale_ it was eighteen and the waiter was satisfied with the change
from twenty, which meant for us the saving every night of almost half a
cent. The _Orientale_ was by comparison as quiet and deserted as the
_Panada_ was crowded and noisy. Outside, tables looked upon the Lagoon
and the facade of _San Giorgio_, white in the night. In a big, new,
gilded room sailors and sergeants played checkers and more serious
Venetians worked out dismal problems in chess. But Duveneck's corner was
in the older, shabby, stuffy, low-ceilinged room, and having once
settled there we never wanted to move. As a rule we shared it with only
an elderly Englishman and his son who read the _Standard_ in the
opposite corner--after our race with them to the _cafe_, the winners
getting the one English paper first--and we were seldom intruded upon or
interrupted except by the