ste the scarlet labels on his
cases. He was beginning to take a certain blase pride in his luggage.
Already it had the appearance of having traveled widely. It would look
well on week-end trips at home.

At seven that evening they stepped out of the station in Venice. The
blue twilight of Venice, that curves down from the hollow heavens,
softening a bit of ugliness here, accentuating a bit of loveliness
there; that mysterious, incomparable blue which is without match or
equivalent, and which flattens all perspective and gives to each scene
the look of a separate canvas! Here Merrihew found one of his dreams
come true, and his first vision of the Grand Canal, with its gondolas
and barges and queer little bobtailed skiffs, was never to leave him.
What impressed him most was the sense of peace and quiet. No one seemed
in a hurry, for hurry carries with it the suggestion of noise and
turmoil. Hillard hunted for his old gondolier, but could not find him.
So he chose one Achille whose ferrule was bright and who carried the
number 154. With their trunks, which they had picked up at Genoa, and
small luggage in the hotel barge, they had the gondola all to
themselves.

Instead of following the Grand Canal, Achille took the short cut through
the Ruga di San Giovanni and the Rio di San Polo. It was early
moonlight, and as they glided silently past the ancient marble church in
the Campo San Polo the fairy-like beauty of it caught Merrihew by the
throat.

"This is the happy hunting grounds," he said. "This beats all the
cab-riding I ever heard of. And this is Venice!" He patted Hillard on
the shoulder. "I am grateful to you, Jack. If you hadn't positively
dragged me into it, I should have gone on grubbing, gone on thinking
that I knew something about beauty. Venice!" He extended his arms as a
Muezzin does when he calls to prayer. "Venice! The shade of Napoleon, of
Othello, of Portia, of Petrarch!"

Hillard smiled indulgently. "I love your enthusiasm, Dan. So long as a
man has that, the rest doesn't matter."

Out into the Grand Canal again, and another short cut by the way of the
Rio del Baccaroli. As they swept under the last bridge before coming out
into the hotel district, Hillard espied a beggar leaning over the
parapet. The faint light of the moon shone full in his face.

"Stop!" cried Hillard to Achille, who swung down powerfully on his
blade. Hillard stood up excitedly.

The beggar took to his heels, and when Hillard s