nd could
accommodate twenty thousand people. All round and under it is a arch,
where I spoze the poor condemned prisoners wuz kep' and the wild
beasts that wuz to fight with 'em and kill 'em for the pleasure of the
populace. Miss Meechim got dretful worked up seein' it, and she and
Arvilly had words, comparin' old times and new, and the different wild
beasts they encourage and let loose on the public. Arvilly's views,
tinged and shadowed as they always are, by what she's went through,
they both got mad as hens before they got through.

There are ruins of a large aqueduct near, which wuz flooded with
water, I spoze, for acquatic sports way back, mebby back to Anna D, or
before her. Some say that early Christians were put to death in this
amphitheatre, but it hain't very clearly proved.

Well, we only stayed one day at Verona, and the next day we hastened
on to Venice.

Josiah told me that he wanted to go to Venice. Sez he: "It is a place
from what I hear on't that has a crackin' good water power and that is
always the makin' of a town, and then," sez he, "I've always wanted to
see the Bridge of Size and the Doggy's Palace." Sez he: "When a city
is good enough to rare up such a palace to dogs it shows there is
sunthin' good 'bout it, and I dare presoom to say there hain't a dog
amongst 'em any better than Snip or one that can bring up the cows any
better."

Josiah thinks we've got the cutest dog and cat in the world. He has
spent hours trainin' 'em, and they'll both start for the cow paster
jest the right time and bring up the cows; of course, the cat can't do
much only tag along after the dog; she don't bark any, it not bein'
her nater to, but it looks dretful cunnin'. Sez Josiah, "I wouldn't be
ashamed to show Snip off by the side of any of the dogs in the Doggy's
Palace."

Sez I, coldly, "How do you spell dogs, Josiah Allen?"

"Why, dog-es, doggys."

Sez I, "The palace was rared up by a man--a Doge--the Doges wuz great
men, rulers in Venice."

"I don't believe a word on't," sez he. "It is rared up for dogs, and
I'm thinkin' quite a little of rarin' up a small house with a steeple
on't for Snip. He deserves it."

Well, there wuzn't no use in argyin'; I knew he would have to give up
when he got there, and so he did. And it wuz jest so with the Bridge
of Sighs, that has, as Mr. Byron said, "A palace and a prison on each
side."

Josiah insisted on't that it wuz called the Bridge of Size, because it
wuz the m