ellowship the fates provide. An English spinster
retailing paradoxes culled to-day from Ruskin's handbooks; an American
citizen describing his jaunt in a gondola from the railway station;
a German shopkeeper descanting in one breath on Baur's Bock and the
beauties of the Marcusplatz; an intelligent aesthete bent on working
into clearness his own views of Carpaccio's genius: all these in turn,
or all together, must be suffered gladly through well-nigh two long
hours. Uncomforted in soul we rise from the expensive banquet; and how
often rise from it unfed!

Far other be the doom of my own friends--of pious bards and genial
companions, lovers of natural and lovely things! Nor for these do
I desire a seat at Florian's marble tables, or a perch in Quadri's
window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command
a bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain
humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending
little place, near a bridge, with a garden hard by which sends a
cataract of honeysuckles sunward over a too-jealous wall. In front
lies a Mediterranean steamer, which all day long has been discharging
cargo. Gazing westward up Giudecca, masts and funnels bar the
sunset and the Paduan hills; and from a little front room of the
_trattoria_ the view is so marine that one keeps fancying oneself
in some ship's cabin. Sea-captains sit and smoke beside their glass
of grog in the pavilion and the _caffe_. But we do not seek their
company at dinner-time. Our way lies under yonder arch, and up the
narrow alley into a paved court. Here are oleanders in pots, and
plants of Japanese spindle-wood in tubs; and from the walls beneath
the window hang cages of all sorts of birds--a talking parrot, a
whistling blackbird, goldfinches, canaries, linnets. Athos, the fat
dog, who goes to market daily in a _barchetta_ with his master,
snuffs around. 'Where are Porthos and Aramis, my friend?' Athos does
not take the joke; he only wags his stump of tail and pokes his nose
into my hand. What a Tartufe's nose it is! Its bridge displays the
full parade of leather-bound brass-nailed muzzle. But beneath, this
muzzle is a patent sham. The frame does not even pretend to close
on Athos' jaw, and the wise dog wears it like a decoration. A little
farther we meet that ancient grey cat, who has no discoverable name,
but is famous for the sprightliness and grace with which she bears her
eighteen years.