ody in the
circumference of one huge joke. In such an air the sense of strangeness
soon wore off, and Tony was beginning to feel himself vastly at home,
when a lift of the tide bore him against a droll-looking bell-ringing
fellow who carried above his head a tall metal tree hung with
sherbet-glasses.

The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off and
clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the saints,
and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by
mistake for a sequin. The fellow's eyes shot out of their orbits, and
just then a personable-looking young man who had observed the
transaction stepped up to Tony and said pleasantly, in English:

"I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency."

"Does he want more?" says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other laughed
and replied: "You have given him enough to retire from his business and
open a gaming-house over the arcade."

Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the preliminaries,
the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in
front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted
himself lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was
good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he
had paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out
again to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count
Rialto, appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to
point out to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of
ton and ladies of fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a
kind not openly mentioned in taking a census of Salem.

Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered, had
perused the "Merchant of Venice" and Mr. Otway's fine tragedy; but
though these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of
Venice differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the
surprising appearance and manners of the great people his friend named
to him. The gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped
trousers, short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and
doctor's gown, another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour;
while the President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible
strutting fellow with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a
trailing scarlet cloak that the crowd was careful not