ptation, the aquatic
accomplishments we saw were so deserving of reward. I had the misfortune
to lose a little pink rose overboard, as it were, and Dicky looked
seriously annoyed when an amphibious young Venetian caught it between
his lips. I don't know why; he was one of the most attractive on view,
but I have often noticed Turkish tendencies in Dicky where his
country-women are concerned. We came away almost immediately after, so
that rose will bloom in my memory, until I forget about it, among
romances that might have been.

Strolling back, we bought a Venetian secret for a sou or two, a
beautiful little secret, I wonder who first found it out. A picturesque
and fishy smelling person in a soft felt hat sold it to us--a pair of
tiny dainty dried sea-horses, "_mere_" and "_pere_" he called them. And
there, all in the curving poise of their little heads and the twist of
their little tails, was revealed half the art of Venice, and we saw how
the first glass worker came to be told to make a sea green dragon
climbing over an amber yellow bowl, and where the gondola borrowed its
grace. They moved us to unanimous enthusiasm, and we utterly refused to
let Dicky put one in his button-hole.

It is looking back upon Venice, too, that I see the paternal figure of
the Senator nourishing the people with octopuses. This may seem
improbable, but it is strictly true. They were small octopuses, not
nearly large enough to kill anybody while they were alive, though boiled
and pickled they looked very deadly. Pink in colour, they stood in a
barrel near the entrance, I remember, of Jesurum's, and attracted the
Senator's inquiring eye. When the guide said they were for human
consumption poppa looked at him suspiciously and offered him one. He ate
it with a promptness and artistic despatch that fascinated us all,
gathering it up by its limp long legs and taking bites out of it, as if
it were an apple. A one-eyed man who hooked pausing gondolas up to the
slippery steps offered to show how it should be done, and other
performers, all skilled, seemed to rise from the stones of the pavement.
Poppa invited them all, by pantomime, to walk up and have an octopus,
and when the crowd began to gather from the side alleys, and the
enthusiasm grew too promiscuous, he bought the barrel outright and
watched the carnival from the middle of the canal. He often speaks of
his enjoyment of the Venetian octopus, eaten in cold blood, without
pepper, salt, or v